How ‘carbon farming’ could help Oregon reach its climate goals

Photo from Creative Commons courtesy of Ali Hadbe

Cassandra Profita, OPB  September 18, 2023

Rancher Jeanne Carver threw her leg over a fence lining her property in Central Oregon.

“Let me go first,” she said. “It’s snake season.”

Watching for rattlesnakes, she led the way into a field her family converted back into grassland after a century of crop production.

Homesteaders cleared the rocks and plowed this field to plant grain and hay on what is now the Imperial Stock Ranch, which grazes sheep and cattle and grows wheat and hay in Maupin.

“This was tough country to farm,” Carver said. “They had to pick areas where they had more soil than rocks.”

More