Carbon Credit Market: Benefits to the Farmer and Benefits to the Retailer
Published on
18 Apr 2022
In this series, the first article titled What are Carbon Credits? addresses carbon credit brokers, carbon credits as a commodity, and industry impacts. This week we consider the many benefits of carbon credits.
Benefits to the Farmer
In addition to any revenue that a farmer creates by proving carbon sequestration, there are other potentially more important benefits.
First, cover crops and carbon capture will reduce soil erosion and increase soil health. Carbon is organic matter and increasing the amount of organic matter in your soil will allow the soil to better take up fertilizer nutrients lowering the amount of fertilizer needed. (The production of fertilizer is a huge source of GHG.)
Ninety-seven percent of environmental scientists say that climate change is real and proven, according to NASA. No matter how high-tech and sophisticated our farming practices become, success in farming is still at the mercy of the climate. So, another benefit to the farmer is that this gives them more power to help make sure future generations have an environment in which farming is still viable.
Benefits to the Retailer
Retailers can benefit if you help the farmer keep good historical records of what’s been happening at the field level. The easier you can make it on them to glean the benefits of carbon farming the ‘stickier’ your relationship with that farmer will become and the larger the share of the wallet you’ll have.
Stay tuned to weekly Agvance blog articles! The next article in the Ag Retailers' Role in the Carbon Credit Market series is Helping your Growers with Carbon Reporting.