Editor' Note: There was plenty of interest among attendees at the eighth annual National No-Tillage Conference in Des Moines regarding carbon credits. Because of these concerns, we asked Pete Hill to answer the most typical questions asked by no-tillers. Hill is an agronomist with Monsanto in Urbandale, Iowa, and has followed carbon sequestrian issues very closely.

What should tillage and farming expenses have in common?

When our forefathers first sailed to this country and started working American soil for food, they had no idea that their methods were actually hurting the productivity of the soil. After all, the vast prairies of this continent had millions of years to build up proper carbon, nitrogen and potassium levels. If tilling the soil was actually draining those nutrients and hurting its productivity, it certainly wasn’t apparent to early settlers.

As urban areas stretch further into the countryside, adding more acres often requires no-tillers to buy or rent land located miles from their center of operation.