By CELESTE BAUMGARTNER
Ohio Correspondent

PLAIN CITY, Ohio — “Carbon” was the buzzword when the Ohio Corn Growers Assoc. hosted a team of Brazilian ranchers and farmers to talk about misconceptions of deforestation in the Amazon regions, carbon trading and climate change legislation.

The team included Brazilian rancher and former Texan John Carter, recently featured in Time magazine and on the “David Letterman” and “Today” shows talking about the impact of biofuel around the world.

The visit was part of a farmer exchange program begun when Fred Yoder, past president of the National Corn Growers Assoc., attended the United Nations Climate Conference in Poland.

“We were trying to figure out what the rest of the world was thinking about as far as any kind of climate bill and how agriculture would be affected,” Yoder said. “The only country that talked about agriculture was Brazil.”

Yoder suggested a farmer exchange to learn more about agricultural offsets – high carbon emitters buying carbon offsets from farmers who sequester carbon.

The U.S. farmers wanted to see if biofuel production in the United States was affecting the rapid degradation of the rainforests, technically called indirect land use change.

Carter was one of the ranchers the U.S. farmers visited in Brazil.
He is a Texas rancher who moved to Brazil 11 years ago with his Brazilian wife, Kika, and began raising cattle in Moto Grosso. He has founded a group that is trying to give producers incentives for reducing their impact on the rain forest. Carbon sequestering would be one way to do that.

Carter showed the visiting group 30,000- and 40,000-acre fields that were forest when he moved to Brazil but are now cleared. “John said if we don’t do something universally to save the rain forest, the Amazon Basin will be gone in 10 years,” Yoder said.
Walking into a virgin rain forest Yoder found it so dense it was hard to see, and the temperature was 20 degrees cooler than on the cleared areas.

“It was 95 degrees where the land was cleared,” he said.
“We stepped into that rain forest and it was 75 degrees; unbelievable. There is no question that their climate is being devastated.”

The group visited a native village and the chief told them how for thousands of years there were certain days on their calendar when it always rained, Yoder said. For the past six years it has not rained on those days.

“It is because of deforestation,” Yoder said.

Most of the deforestation now is caused by squatters, he said. Farms and ranches are big; unknown to the owner, squatters carve out 50 acres or so and burn it off so they can raise cattle. It is difficult to remove the squatters.

Carter has formed a group to help farmers protect their properties. The Brazilian farmers were then invited to the U.S. Some of the things they did here included a visit to a manufacturing facility that produces biobased products, took a tour of Yoder’s farm and attended an agricultural field day. Then the farmers were off to Washington, D.C., to learn about the U.S. political system and climate change policy.

“We went to Brazil to link with them and get them interested in what we’re doing,” Yoder said.

“They had the perception that we didn’t want to work with them. They came up here and visited our farm and understood that we want to figure out ways that agriculture could be a part of the climate change solution.”

The only way Brazil can possibly be a world player in climate change solutions is by selling their ability to sequester carbon, Yoder said. “They are a developing country. They are also emitting a lot.”
“Hopefully we are going to continue this exchange,” he added. “We are going to meet with them and come up with some ideas.”
Concerning climate change legislation, Yoder said it is going to happen and agriculture needs to be involved.

“If we’re not at the table, we’re going to be part of the menu,” he said.

“Somebody is going to be making a decision about agriculture and it is not going to be agriculture. We have to be there.”
John Carter’s visit to the Letterman show can be seen by visiting www.youtube.com and entering “David Letterman John Carter” in the Search box.