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The Fuzzy Math of Soil Carbon Markets | Ambrook Research

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Along the banks of the Wabash River in southwestern Indiana, farmer Lance Unger and his family raise 8,000 acres of corn, soybeans, and wheat — staple row crops across the Midwest. But Unger, a third-generation farmer, has differentiated his farm from most by joining a relatively new trend: selling carbon credits. Read Next How to Build a Climate-Smart Farm Bill Can No-Till Farming Go Big? The USDA Wants Farmers to Double-Crop. It's Not Just About Profits. Six years ago, Unger chose to “farm carbon” in a partnership with Indigo Ag, an enormous, well-funded agtech startup that pays farmers to implement practices purported to store carbon in the ground. This includes planting cover crops and reducing the amount of tillage on a parcel of land. By implementing these practices, farmers generate carbon credits (one credit per ton of CO₂ stored in the soil) that brokers like Indigo sell to other companies, which then offset their own carbon and market themselves as greener. Joining the progra

Carbon schemes offer farmers a way to both help the planet and grow their earnings. The reality is not so simple. Along the banks of the Wabash River in southwestern Indiana, farmer Lance Unger and his family raise 8,000 acres of corn, soybeans, and wheat — staple row crops across the Midwest. But Unger, a third-generation farmer, has differentiated his farm from most by joining a relatively new trend: selling carbon credits. Read Next How to Build a Climate-Smart Farm Bill Can No-Till Farming Go Big? The USDA Wants Farmers to Double-Crop. It's Not Just About Profits. Six years ago, Unger chos

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