Corn, kangaroos and climate change

The mineral rights beneath farmers’ fields aren’t the only connections between farming, fuel and climate change. With biofuel diverting billions of dollars worth of crops into fuels like ethanol, and even the lowly cow taking her turn at generating fuel, our energy reserves are beginning to come not from oilfields, but plain ol’ fields.

All that farmer-fuelled biofuel production hasn’t been without its controversy, however, and with data supporting the contention that food-for-fuel is rapidly increasing food prices, calls to rescind farmers’ biofuel subsidies have been getting louder. But if the calls are increasing, governmental support in North America isn’t yet following suit. As recently as August 7, the American Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rebuffed calls to rescind the subsidies under its Renewable Fuel Standard Program, saying that, contrary to a report by the World Bank, subsidies have no discernable effect on food prices.

But if food prices and biofuel are old news, and it’s certainly true that they’ve been the subject of intensive news reports since they were introduced globally as a means of combating greenhouse gas emissions, Australia recently unveiled an agricultural method of reducing emissions that’s brand new — none other than their iconic kangaroos.

Kangaroos, according to researcher George Wilson, produce fewer greenhouse gases than their ruminating counterparts, who are already well known as a large source of greenhouse gas emissions via their methane-laden belches. With kangaroos already plentiful and, so the argument goes, delicious, culling and domesticating them means an ideal source of meat without the climate changing implications. Add in the advantages of their padded feet, which don’t erode the soil in the same way that cloven hooves do, and the Aussies have a strong argument in favour of marsupials as a climate change solution.

Whether they’re providing corn for gas tanks or kangaroos for reduced greenhouse gas emissions, fields across the world are being used to tackle the myriad issues with modern fuel and food production. From oilfields to fields, from fossil fuels to living fuel and food sources, there’s no doubt that the next generation of climate-altering decisions will have more to do with what we find on our land than what we find underneath it.