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Coalition to create new market opportunities for soil-conscious farmers

A national coalition of ag and food groups has launched a program to financially incentivize farmers to improve soil health.

The program will create an environmental services market, says Debbie Reed with DRD Associates, a consulting business on the coalition’s steering committee.

“We intend to put together a buyer’s club of companies and others who are very interested in improving their corporate footprint and who will pay farmers to create these benefits for society by improving soil health,” she says.

Reed tells Brownfield although there are existing incentive programs, the coalition felt none of them truly benefited farmers.

“This will be a program that will measure the outcomes of improved soil carbon, water quality, and conservation to create value and credits based on what farmers are doing,” she says.

The coalition says a market like this could mitigate up to 90 percent of agriculture’s current greenhouse emissions by giving farmers a financial incentive to keep carbon in the soil.

They’ve released a proposal to find out which conservation practices farmers will implement, which will likely include cover crops.

The coalition will conduct pilot projects in Texas and Oklahoma in 2019 and then rollout the official platform nationally.

The coalition led by Oklahoma-based Noble Research Institute includes General Mills, Natural Resources Conservation Service, the Soil Health Institute, Newtrient, the National Association of Conservation Districts, Gordian Knot Strategies, Strategic Conservation Solutions, and farm groups in Oklahoma and Texas.

Audio: Debbie Reed, DRD Associates 

  • This is fantastic!
    I would highly suggest that Debbie contact Energime University in New York since they are about to embark along a similar pathway with Cornell University and Lakeland College in Alberta, and it might make sense to “join forces” in order to ensure that as many farmers as possible will benefit from such type of program.

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