Ag carbon credits go to market, just as cap and trade is questioned

Rice farmer Mark Isbell changed how he nurtures rice plants on 70 acres of his Arkansas farm. Instead of flooding the rice fields for the entire growing season, he now practices what is called alternating wet and dry farming, where he allows the water to drain from the rice field for about a week mid-season. "What that impacts is the cell bacteria that typically in a flooded environment creates methane," Isbell told GreenBiz in an interview over the phone, the sound of his truck rumbling in the background. "It stops producing methane in dry periods, and when the fields are wet again it takes a while for the bacteria to produce methane." Letting the fields temporarily dry has reduced the methane released from that rice field by 50 percent, compared to an adjacent field that was flooded all through the growing season, according to measurements taken by the University of Arkansas.