This one-page Ag quickCAST contains excerpted material from its companion CAST document, Carbon Sequestration and Greenhouse Gas Fluxes in Agriculture: Challenges and Opportunities.

The need to decrease concentrations of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases (GHGs) in Earth’s atmosphere has been identified as one of the most pressing modern-day environmental issues. Agriculture, in addition to being affected by the climate, contributes to climate change through its exchanges of GHGs with the atmosphere.

Greenhouse gases (GHGs) are of increasing concern because of their potential role in promoting rapid and undesirable change in climate. Agriculture ironically serves as both a source and a sink for this increase in GHGs.