SUGARCANE CARBON SEQUESTRATION POTENTIAL UNDER THE CLEAN DEVELOPMENT MECHANISM THE CASE OF KAKIRA SUGAR ESTATES-UGANDA
Previously Published Material: It was presented as a poster on the 28th of March 2014 in Brussels- Belgium and was reviewed and accepted for presentation in the African Green Revolution Conference 2014: BRIDGING THE GAP BETWEEN SCIENCE, SOCIETY AND INDUSTRY: Building a new generation of African Soil Scientists and Agronomists Kenyatta University, Nairobi, Kenya, 1st – 5th December, 2014 but was not presented due to lack of sponsorship
Abstract ID#: 33456
Soils, and managed agricultural soils in particular, represent a potentially significant low cost sink for greenhouse gases (GHGs) with multiple potential co-benefits to farm productivity and profitability (Jonathan, Ryan and Jeffrey, 2010). Since agricultural soils can store more carbon, a modest increase in carbon stocks across the large land areas used for agriculture would represent a significant GHG mitigation. Sugarcane accompanied with good farming practices has the potential to sequester considerable amounts of carbon and so contribute to climate change mitigation. However, little has been done to provide relevant information concerning carbon sequestration in crop lands and sugarcane in particular. This research analyzed the performance of four different sugarcane varieties to sequester carbon in the soil at Kakira sugar works in Uganda. Results show that sugarcane grown in Kakira estates has the potential to sequester carbon of about 239.4Tc/ha for plant crop and 2 ratoons. Therefore, with proper agronomic practices, carbon sequestration in sugarcane can contribute to clean development mechanism in sugar milling and processing.
Key Words: Carbon sequestration, sugarcane varieties, soil organic carbon, phytoliths, Bulk density.