ABSTRACT
The U.S. contains 212 Mha of privately owned and 124 Mha of publicly owned grazing lands. With the adoption of recommended land use, soil, and pasture management practices, the privately owned lands are estimated to potentially sequester 30 to 110 MMT C/yr (mean of 70 MMT/yr). This potential is about 50% of that for U.S. cropland, estimated at 75 to 208 MMTC/yr (mean of 142 MMT/yr) (Lal et al., 1998). Both estimates include CRP and mined lands, 6 to 13 MMTC/yr (mean of 10 MMTC/yr; Lal et al., 1998). Thus, the total potential to sequester C in agricultural soils, 99 to 305 MMTC/yr (mean of 202 MMTC/yr), offers an enormous opportunity for land managers and policy makers to enhance soil quality, decrease the risks of pollution of natural waters, and reduce the rate of emissions of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
