Adoption of novel climate-smart farming systems for enhanced carbon stock and carbon dioxide equivalent emission reduction in cattle corridor areas of Uganda.

Climate change remains the single major threat to the realization of increased livestock production because of its impact on the quantity and quality of feed crops and forages, water availability, animal reproduction, and biodiversity. To minimize the negative impacts of climate change on livestock, an agroforestry project was implemented in the cattle corridor areas of Uganda. Predominant agroforestry tree species and improved grass were planted. At the age of 1.5 years, the aboveground biomass, aboveground carbon stock, and carbon dioxide equivalent emissions sequestrated by each sapling species strand and grass species were determined. From the results, the aboveground biomass (F = 92.21,  = 0.020), aboveground carbon stock (F = 101.01,  = 0.035), and the carbon dioxide equivalent emissions sequestrated (F = 71.02,  = 0.0401) varied significantly among the studied species. Among the agroforestry saplings, (10.0 ± 0.7 ton/acre) had the highest aboveground biomass, while (4.3 ± 0.3 tons/acre) and (4.1 ± 0.2 tons/acre) had the lowest aboveground biomass. Similarly, the aboveground carbon stock was the highest in strand (4.70 ± 0.1 tons/acre) and lowest in the strand (1.94 ± 0.2 tons/acre). At a strand level, (17 ± 0.4 ton/acre) sequestrated the highest quantities of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions, followed by (10 ± 0.2 ton/acre) and (9 ± 0.5 ton/acre) species strands. (7 ± 0.2 ton/acre) and (7 ± 0.1 ton/acre) strands sequestrated the lowest quantities of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions. At the age of 1.5 years, the grass species were fully grown but only stored 0.51 ± 0.0 and 0.47 ± 0.0 tons/acre of Aboveground carbon for and respectively. The carbon dioxide equivalent emissions sequestrated by the grass: (1.9 ± 0.0 ton/acre) and (1.7 ± 0.0 ton/acre) were also less than that of the agroforestry saplings. From this study, the agroforestry species with higher wood biomass and fast growth rate are recommended for carbon dioxide emission sequestration.