NASA: Argentina is carbon positive

Traditional approaches to measuring carbon dioxide, based on counting and estimating the amount of carbon dioxide emitted by all sectors of the economy, such as transport and agriculture , have been used for years. This made it possible to assess progress in efforts to reduce emissions.

But its development misses a more important part of the story: the incorporation of carbon dioxide into the soil. The top-down approach, in which different activities are seen as part of a cycle, makes it possible to differentiate different types of economic output. 

The study, published in Earth System Science Data using measurements made by NASA's Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 (OCO-2) mission, offers a new perspective by tracking both fossil fuel emissions and overall changes in the "carbon stocks" of ecosystems, including trees, shrubs and soils.

This data is especially useful for monitoring land cover fluctuations in carbon dioxide. Although the OCO-2 mission was not specifically designed to estimate emissions in individual countries, greenhouse emissions results were obtained from more than 100 countries. 

The conclusion is that Argentina is one of the few countries with a positive balance (green) due to carbon sequestration in grasslands. 

But the importance attached to animal husbandry in Argentina. Animal husbandry in Argentina is part of the natural ecosystem and is one of the activities through which Argentina's agriculture plays an important role in controlling photosynthesis and removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as part of the natural carbon cycle.

The process occurs at the expense of cows, which feed mainly on natural pastures. These food resources absorb carbon dioxide from the air as part of the natural ecosystem through photosynthesis. Cows digest the carbon in the grass, releasing methane into the atmosphere. But the methane they emit is "created" from the carbon of the grass they consume, and lasts 10 to 12 years in the atmosphere. After this time, the methane is converted into water and carbon dioxide. One that is naturally absorbed through photosynthesis by natural pastures. And so the cycle repeats over and over again. This is a pure natural process.

Argentina is one of the countries with the largest area of ​​natural pastures on planet Earth. It is among the top five countries with the highest availability of this resource.

On the other hand, Argentine animal husbandry is one of the few activities that allows the conversion of vegetable protein unsuitable for human consumption into animal protein of high biological value for human consumption.