Faculty Focus: Rajan Ghimire, College of Agricultural, Consumer and Enviromental Sciences

With climate change impacting communities across the globe, a researcher from the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences is working to develop techniques to relieve agricultural production stresses via carbon sequestration.

Rajan Ghimire, a cropping systems agronomist at the Agricultural Science Center at Clovis, has focused his research on understanding soil, plant and environmental interactions to better manage cropping systems and improve soil health.

“My whole focus is on identifying agricultural strategies for capturing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and storing it in the soil as organic carbon,” Ghimire said. “In agricultural ecology, we use plants as a CO2 pump because plants, during the photosynthesis process, capture and store carbon in above- and below-ground biomass.”

Most scientists agree that rising carbson dioxide emissions and other greenhouse gases are causing climate change, fueling more extreme heat and weather and harming the agricultural sector.

“If we can reduce the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, then we can improve our environment,” Ghimire said.

Since joining NMSU in 2015, Ghimire has expanded his studies to understand soil health and carbon sequestration in arid and semi-arid areas.

“Overall, the goal on all these projects is connecting dots of improving agricultural production, water-use efficiency, increasing carbon sequestration, and mitigating greenhouse gas emissions,” he said.

Ghimire said his long-term objective is to help underdeveloped countries through his research and production technologies. He believes developing reliable carbon sequestration strategies in New Mexico could benefit nearly 40% of the world and touch the livelihood of almost 20% of the global population residing in arid and semi-arid regions.