The green "movement" is about greenbacks, currency, not the environment.

Deforestation and various land uses account for nearly a third of global greenhouse gas emissions. Among these uses, agriculture is the one that offers the most readily achievable gains in carbon storage, according to a UNEP report released last June.

If practices like agroforestry and conservation agriculture were widely adopted, the report says, as much as 2 gigatonnes of carbon could be captured from the atmosphere each year by 2030 – an amount comparable to current emissions from agriculture. In other words, agriculture could be made essentially carbon neutral within two decades, while still providing enough food for a rapidly growing world population.

“Saving carbon is not a priority for smallholder farmers,” said Dennis Garrity, director general of the World Agroforestry Centre. What does matter to them, he explained, are the other benefits of green agricultural practices, such as higher crop yields resulting from the use of so-called “fertilizer” trees. Additional gains from agroforestry include increased supplies of fuelwood, which lessen the pressure on forests, and of fruits, which enhance child nutrition.

How rapidly such practices spread will depend in large part on the outcomes of the crucial United Nations Climate Conference to be held at Copenhagen in December. “Nations must seal the deal on a comprehensive and scientifically credible climate agreement,” said Achim Steiner, executive director of UNEP – one that includes a scheme for reduced emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD).

Such an agreement will open the way, Garrity noted, for smallholders to receive payment for sequestering carbon through forest preservation, conservation agriculture and increased tree cover on farms.

If these ag practices are as beneficial as claimed then why the rent seeking? All of these UN and NGO hustles are about jobs for meddlers, not GHGs or smallhold farmers. These parasites are part of the problem set and contribute nothing to the solution set.