Digital Network Established for Carbon Payments to Farmers

Farmers who want to be paid for sequestering carbon now have a company that can connect them to carbon buyers. Nori is a firm that says it has developed an incentive system to measure and verify soil carbon. It’s currently offering what it calls its Lightning Sale as the beginning step to connect carbon buyers with farmers who are increasing their soil carbon with farming practices like no-till and cover crops.

In this plan, individuals and businesses pay about $16 to have a metric ton of carbon dioxide verifiably removed from the atmosphere, according to a Nori press release. Nori Lightning Sale participants can estimate their carbon footprints and pick their own cash-for-carbon purchase amounts at nori.com/remove-carbon.

Participants in Nori’s new Lightning Sale will be underwriting the removal of thousands of metric tons of carbon dioxide from the air, according to Nori’s press release. The sale is the first stage of Nori’s digital marketplace that will soon facilitate large-scale carbon removal through multiple methods including sustainable farming, forestry, direct air capture, and other natural and industrial methods.

“Reducing emissions is important, but the world is sadly past the point where reductions alone can reverse the trend in global climate,” said Paul Gambill, Nori CEO, in a Nori press release. “By making carbon removal more accessible, anyone who wants to help turn climate around can now do so.”

Trey Hill, chief executive officer of Harborview Farms, Rock Hall, Maryland, is leveraging Nori’s digital marketplace to sell the additional metric tons of carbon his farm has added to the soil. Hill relies on data collection and detailed record management of his day-to-day farming practices to participate in this program. He uses agricultural software solutions from Granular, a subsidiary of Corteva Agriscience, to verify to the dollar and to the acre that he has captured the carbon.

“Making it easy for individual consumers and investors alike to support carbon removal is a huge first step that will help transform the way our country farms,” Hill said in a Nori press release. “Carbon sequestration is not only becoming an integral part of how we grow our crops, it is becoming the philosophy behind how we plan our business.”

“Granular is committed to helping farmers steward their land – and grow their businesses,” said Chris Seifert, vice president of data science at Granular. “Nori’s Lightning Sale is a first step in creating an easily accessible market for carbon sequestration. Granular software enables verifiable farming practices and evidenced-based data collection and management, supporting farmers, a new revenue stream, and the environment.”

Nori also relies on the Comet-Farm carbon and greenhouse gas accounting system supported by USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service and developed by the Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory at Colorado State University. Nori’s work also is mentored and guided by The Nature Conservancy.

Online Lightning Sale purchases are available today. Nori’s full-line carbon-removal marketplace for investors, corporations, and other large-scale buyers and sellers is set to launch in early 2020.

Source: Agriculture.com