Creating and Quantifying Carbon Credits From Voluntary Practices on Rice Farms in the Sacramento Valley

 This project seeks to identify, refine, and develop innovative practices and technologies that reduce greenhouse gas emissions or otherwise sequester carbon on rice farms and that provide environmental benefits associated with water quality, air quality, and wildlife Habitat. The practices and technologies will be field tested on rice farms in California’s Sacramento Valley. Net GHG emission reductions will be modeled and verified using recently developed GHG accounting protocols for the agriculture and land use sector.

With the enactment of Assembly Bill 32, the Global Warming Solutions Act, in late 2006, the time is ripe for this proposed project. California is now exploring the development of various GHG emission reduction strategies including the potential use of market-based mechanisms to create incentives for producers to adopt voluntary GHG emission practices. In order for such strategies to be successful, GHG emissions reduction strategies and technologies in the agriculture sector must be tested and refined. Accounting protocols and systems must be credible, reliable, and quantifiable. This project offers the potential to test both voluntary on-the-ground GHG emission reduction strategies and technologies, and the associated accounting systems that facilitate participation of the agriculture sector in future emission reduction and emissions trading systems. Through this project we will also assess the economic feasibility for landowners participating in voluntary GHG emission reduction programs under various policy and market-based scenarios.