Digging into carbon credits: how farms are part of the climate solution

By Sara Wood, Vice President, Ontario Federation of Agriculture

Agriculture is often mentioned as a source of greenhouse gas emissions. At the same time, it is considered to be one of the only sectors with significant opportunities to remove carbon from the atmosphere and store it through a process called carbon sequestration – and sell what is known as carbon credits.

The Kyoto Protocol was signed in 1992, committing countries globally to emissions reductions targets. Knowing it would be hard for some countries and industries to meet their climate promises, the agreement included a system where those who can’t reduce their emissions enough can buy credits from others who can. This is called “offsetting” and is the basic idea behind carbon credits.

So how does farming fit in here? Carbon sequestration by agriculture supports the carbon credit system by capturing and storing carbon dioxide (CO₂) from the atmosphere.

Plants naturally absorb CO₂ as they grow. Farming practices like planting cover crops, reducing tillage, and using compost or manure instead of synthetic fertilizers to grow crops help keep more of that carbon in the soil instead of letting it go back into the air. This process is called carbon sequestration.

When farmers use these practices, they may be able to measure how much carbon they’ve stored and sell that as a carbon credit. In this way, agriculture becomes part of the solution to climate change while also benefiting from the carbon credit market.

Many farmers, including our family farm in southwestern Ontario near the town of Mitchell, are actively using best management practices like reducing or eliminating soil tillage and using cover crops to build healthier soils that support carbon sequestration and greenhouse gas emissions reductions.