Definition of a Parcel Land Type

Agricultural land is land that is arable and regularly tilled for the production of annual field crops, with or without irrigation. The word agriculture refers to a broad class of resource uses that includes all forms of land use for the production of crops, whether grazing/range or plants. In its broadest sense, agricultural land includes all land that provides direct benefits for mankind through the production of food, fiber, forage and fodder.

Agroforestry is a combination of both traditional agricultural production and forestry to create an integrated and sustainable land-use system. Agroforestry takes advantage of the interactive benefits from combining trees and shrubs with crops and/or livestock. Agroforestry practices include: Alley Cropping, Forest Farming, Riparian Forest Buffers, Silvopasture, Windbreaks, and Special Applications.

Definition of an Entity

For the purposes of the Voluntary Reporting Program, an Entity is an individual or organization that is a legal U.S. person (e.g., a U.S. citizen, resident alien, company, organization, or group incorporated under or recognized by U.S. law; or a Federal, State, or local government agency).

For reporting purposes, your entity may be comprised of several parcels. The entity boundary is the extent of all the parcels owned or leased by the entity with different sink/emission sources.  Your entity-level report will include the sum of the Predicted Change in Soil Carbon for all the Parcels.

Definition of a Parcel

A parcel is an area of land that has uniform soils, land use, and common historical and present day land management.

If for example, your parcel has two or more widely differing soil types like clay soil and sandy soil, we recommend you produce reports for each soil type separately, using the approximate area of each type as the parcel area.

Selecting the Parcel Name

Enter a parcel name that will appear on your report (optional). A name allows you to associate your report with a particular parcel. This is helpful if you are producing estimates for multiple parcels by running multiple reports. The default parcel name is "parcel 1".

Figure 7: Example of Parcel Selection Screen

Selecting the Units

Select either English or Metric units.  English units include acres, gallons, and tons. Metric units include hectares, liters, and tonnes.

This is a required item.  The default units are "English".

Entering the Reporting Date

The reporting year is the year for which you are reporting. Valid values range from 2000 through the current year. This year may be referred to as the Report Period in the management rotations and the report pages.

Enter the date in the following format: "Month/Day/Year". For example, 6/1/2004.

This is a required item.  The default date is "the current date".

Selecting the Size

Specify the size of your parcel, in the units you selected previously.

The parcel size is used to calculate the change in the total amount of carbon stored within the soil of the parcel.

This is a required item.  The default parcel size is "1 acre (or 1 hectare if Metric units)".