Bard grad students to pilot COMET model for Columbia County agricultural emissions

Jennifer, an instructor at the Bard Center for Environmental Policy, told Columbia County’s Climate Task Force she will use her graduate students to pilot the USDA COMET model to estimate greenhouse‑gas emissions from field crops in the county. The exercise will model typical crop systems and soils, compare conventional practices to greenhouse‑gas‑sensitive alternatives (for example, cover cropping and altered nutrient management) and may include livestock or apples if the model and resources permit.

"I'll use my grad students to do an exercise that they'll use this model that's been developed by the USDA to estimate greenhouse‑gas emissions from field crops," Jennifer said, describing the project as both a teaching exercise and a county pilot. She emphasized the work is exploratory and intended to show how the model could contribute to a replicable county inventory.

Task force members suggested Jennifer consult existing analyses (for example, Hawthorne Valley Farm work) and noted COMET draws on the USDA soils database, which supports soil‑carbon change estimates. Participants cautioned that orchard crops and livestock have modeling limitations in COMET and that local expertise and existing datasets should be leveraged to refine outputs.

The committee framed the pilot as a way to test methods and provide inputs to CDRPC’s protocol rather than to prescribe farming practices. Jennifer agreed to have follow‑up conversations with county and regional partners to align modeling objectives with CDRPC and county needs.