Several programs exist to pay farmers for storing soil carbon, but a lack of standards has so far held back the burgeoning farm carbon credit sector, says a new report from the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF). The Department of Agriculture should play a role in collecting data and building markets for carbon credits, the report argues, and in the meantime, food and agriculture companies should focus on cutting their own greenhouse gas emissions.
“The stakes for the climate and farmers are extraordinarily high,” said Emily Oldfield, the report’s lead author and an agricultural soil carbon scientist at EDF, in a press release announcing the report. “Agricultural soils could remove 4-6 percent of annual U.S. emissions. We need credible, consistent and cost-effective measurement and verification to know with confidence that soil carbon credits are moving us toward that target.”
The existing protocols that measure soil carbon have several technical and structural obstacles, including how long carbon will be stored in the soil, whether carbon sequestration efforts are creating a new climate benefit additional to what would occur under a business-as-usual approach, and accounting for the potential reversal of carbon storage in the event of future tilling.
So far, companies that seek to pay farmers for stored carbon have achieved some success. But carbon credits are still “risky investments,” says the report. “It will take several years to determine if they are beneficial and will require continued monitoring to ensure that the SOC [soil organic carbon] sequestered is not lost through changes in management practices.”
One of the reasons carbon credits are still risky is the lack of scientific consensus about how much carbon can be stored in the soil and whether the establishment of carbon markets would significantly contribute to mitigating the effects of the climate crisis. Food and agriculture companies can act now on climate change, with more surety, by reducing their emissions outright.
“Paying farmers to sequester carbon remains an uncertain approach to climate change mitigation due to reversal risk and the uncertainties of accurately detecting carbon stock change over time,” the report reads. “Companies can make the greatest, most certain climate impact by prioritizing direct emissions reductions of methane, nitrous oxide and carbon dioxide.”
EDF is a member of the Food and Agriculture Climate Alliance, a coalition of almost 70 organizations that includes the American Farm Bureau Federation, National Farmers Union, Nature Conservancy, and several agriculture trade groups. The coalition has been a major supporter of the Growing Climate Solutions Act, a first-of-its-kind bill that would empower USDA to certify third-party companies that work with farmers to navigate carbon markets, among other steps. The bill passed the Senate in late June.
The report recommends that federal agencies and companies act now to gather more data on soil carbon sequestration and identify soils with the highest carbon potential. USDA should also establish its own carbon bank to complement private-sector initiatives and support further research, the authors say.
“Congress has the opportunity to pass the Growing Climate Solutions Act and direct the U.S. Department of Agriculture to do what is so clearly needed: set guidelines for high-quality agricultural carbon credits,” said Callie Eideberg, director of agricultural policy for EDF. “USDA must be ready to swiftly implement the bill when it becomes law to increase certainty that markets deliver for farmers and the environment.”
Credit markets for carbon stored in the soil are controversial among farm and environmental groups. Some call them a “scam” that would only serve to line the pockets of farming’s most powerful companies and farms. In a recent story, FERN investigated the soil carbon benefits of one USDA program, the Conservation Reserve Program, and examined the range of perspectives on how farmers and other landowners should aid in mitigating climate change.
Read the report, “Agricultural Soil Carbon Credits: Making sense of protocols for carbon sequestration and net greenhouse gas removals,” here.