PAG | December 2021

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MONEY FOR NOTHING
Farmers can get paid for performing land stewardship due diligence
by earning carbon credits
ANDREW JOSEPH
FARMS.COM
For centuries, the alchemist’s dream
was to discover a way to turn lead into
gold—a simple enough proposition
considering that the much more
common lead possesses only a mere
three protons more.
While the world awaits that dream, global climate
entrepreneurs have found a way to turn carbon into
money.
Using land stewardship, farmers can generate carbon
credits for carbon dioxide (CO 2) emissions avoidance
and sell those for fun and profit, though it assumed the
fun is in the profit.
Although “carbon” is the generic term when discussing
GHG (greenhouse gases), in the ag sector CO2 and
N2O (nitrous oxide) are the main concerns.
Wade Barnes knows how to gain the fun for farmers,
and revealed how his company helps
farmers and furthers agricultural sustainability and
digital agronomy at the
held this past November 16-18, 2021.
A pioneer in the Precision ag movement, the
2005-founded Farmers Edge has over 550 employees
across Canada, the US, Australia, Brazil and Russia.
Barns explained that with Smart Farming—via a digital
farming infrastructure—producers can produce more
yield with less by turning data into actions to gain
high-quality carbon savings known as offsets that can
be sold to industries requiring help in achieving their
own carbon neutrality.
Data is collected via high tech tools such as: satellite
imagery; weather stations; soil moisture probes;
telematics devices; soil sampling; irrigation monitoring
devices, and; grain cart weighing devices—all of which
is then collected and processed to make into useable
information for a farmer to analyze and implement for
optimal farming, resulting in enhanced crop yields,
better soil health, and a reduction of GHG emissions.
Barnes explained that Farmers Edge creates individual
farm-specific projects to increase the way carbon
credits can be generated.
Although not in principle a physical asset, carbon
offsets are, in the agriculture sector, the environmental
data records of a farm converted to a number that
shows the reduction of one metric ton (2,205 lbs) of
CO2 emissions, N2O emissions or the combination of
both.
Barnes stated that an independent and accredited
third-party auditor will verify the digital records and
GHG emissions reductions allowing it to then be
entered into a Public Registry.
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