China-US agricultural partnership could scale carbon farming and soil carbon sequestration

China and the US, as major agricultural producers, have a significant opportunity to cooperate on soil health and carbon farming. This opinion piece by soil scientist Rattan Lal argues that regenerative agriculture practices like cover cropping and conservation tillage can sequester carbon in degraded soils, improve food security, and create new income streams through payments for ecosystem services. The article highlights how restoring degraded land across both countries could turn farms into nature-based climate solutions, supporting net-zero goals while addressing drought and flood risks. For those tracking carbon markets, the piece underscores the need for robust measurement and verification of soil carbon. While the potential is clear, scaling carbon farming requires policy frameworks that incentivize adoption, avoid double counting, and establish credible accounting. The cooperation between China and the US could set a global model for aligning agricultural productivity with climate mitigation.