U.S. Scales Up Climate-Smart Ag with $3.1 Billion in Grants
By Jackie Pucci, Senior Editor, CropLife and AgriBusiness Global
The United States Department of Agriculture’s top goal for 2023, as described in its performance plan, is to “combat climate change to support America’s working lands, natural resources and communities.”
On Sept. 14, 2022, Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack announced USDA would be investing up to $2.8 billion in 70 selected projects under the first pool of the Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities funding opportunity. On Dec. 12, 2022, he announced an additional $325 million will be invested in 71 more projects under the second funding pool.
“Expanding opportunities for small and underserved producers is a key goal of Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities. Small and underserved producers are facing the impacts of climate change head on, with limited resources, and have the most to gain from leveraging the growing market demand for agricultural goods produced in a sustainable, climate-smart way. Our goal is to expand markets for climate-smart commodities and ensure that small and underserved producers reap the benefits of these market opportunities,” Vilsack said.
The USDA grant will be used to cover all material, application, and monitoring costs for farmers as well as developing markets for the low-carbon carbon smart commodities grown by participating farmers over the next five years.
A recipient of this grant is Yara International-owned Agoro Carbon Alliance, which is working with Lithos and Yale University to use basalt rock to permanently remove carbon from the atmosphere, while also enhancing crop health. Basalt rock reacts with rainwater and locks up atmospheric CO2 as bicarbonate. The basalt dust replaces the need for lime to increase soil pH, reducing fertilizer costs for farmers.
The USDA grant will be used to cover all material, application, and monitoring costs for farmers as well as developing markets for the low-carbon carbon smart commodities grown by participating farmers over the next five years. The project plans to determine the extent to which this process can increase crop yields, reduce nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions, and decrease fertilizer and lime costs.
“The cool thing about this project is its dual purpose — [basalt rock] is a liming agent and has carbon credit potential. The big shining star is the permanence of it. It’s permanence like we’ve never seen before in a credit — the claim is around 1000 years for sequestration, and the value is at a very elevated dollar amount because of it,” Steve Hasselman, Agronomist with Agoro Carbon Alliance, told CropLife at Commodity Classic 2023 in Orlando.
We spoke with Agoro Carbon CEO Elliot Formal at the event, who highlighted the confluence of governments and companies pushing for sustainable practices in agriculture along with the surge of opportunities to farmers to be more engaged in carbon-smart farming.
“We basically go to farmers with two things: helping them to improve their soil health and the productivity of their land, and then the carbon credits are a cherry on top. We believe these practices are the best practices that farmers can do, and now we’re able, with the support of carbon markets, to incentivize them more to empower them to do this,” Formal said.
At Commodity Classic, we also sat down with Todd Martin, Chief Commercial Officer and Co-Founder of EarthOptics, which is working with American Farmland Trust and partner organizations on a $30-million grant from the USDA to spearhead an effort to transition the U.S. beef supply chain to carbon neutral. The eight-state project will amplify production of climate-smart beef by expanding market drivers, grassroots support networks and early adopter mentors, while also providing technical assistance for the adoption of climate-smart grazing practices to substantially reduce agricultural greenhouse gas emissions and increase carbon sequestration.
Martin co-founded soil data measurement and mapping company EarthOptics in 2018 “with the idea that there are a lot of sensors out there that are being utilized everywhere — even on Mars — that we are not utilizing enough.” The company sourced technology from MIT and DARPA, and started looking at everything it could in the soil down to inch increments, including the impacts of tillage and compaction.
"…With our sensor suite, we can go across the field, we can measure the content of carbon in the soil, give you a real number on your carbon content, and then you can do whatever practice you think is best between you and your trusted advisor."
“It’s a science-based approach to something as simple as tillage. That led us to another gateway: regenerative agriculture and soil health. You’re tilling less, you know where you need to till, and are inherently sequestering carbon and keeping the carbon in the soil,” Martin explained. “So, we asked the question, can we get a legitimate carbon measure, and not an estimation like so many people do? The answer is yes. With our sensor suite, we can go across the field, we can measure the content of carbon in the soil, give you a real number on your carbon content, and then you can do whatever practice you think is best between you and your trusted advisor.”
Martin added: “We believe that as we continue to see the carbon markets mature, that this knowledge — having real carbon numbers associated with your field — is going to be valuable to farmers, and being able to legitimately and actively say, ‘We’ve increased carbon to this many tons per acre,’ is going to have a real value in the marketplace.”
We spoke with Dr. Jennifer Wells, Senior Agronomist with the Land O’Lakes-owned Truterra, which is the lead partner on a $90-million USDA grant for the project, Climate SMART (Scaling Mechanisms for Agriculture’s Regenerative Transformation.)
This project, which will reach across 28 states, aims to catalyze a self-sustaining, market-based network to broaden farmer access, scale adoption of climate-smart practices, and sustainably produce grain and dairy commodities with verified and quantified climate benefits.
According to the company, ag retailers will play a central role in the pilot project, working with grant partners to incentivize farmers to adopt regenerative agriculture practices, including helping match farmers with incentives, agronomic advice, peer-to-peer networks, data entry support and more to support improved soil health systems. Grant partners will deploy existing digital infrastructure, including the Truterra sustainability tool, to aid in measuring impact and supporting validation and quantification processes.
When regenerative agriculture and carbon markets began, Wells likened it to Bitcoin, or Monopoly money — in other words, it was not well understood.
This project, says USDA, will build markets and provide funding to farmers via outcome-based contracts for the reduction and removal of carbon dioxide through the adoption of new climate-smart practices.
“There is a tremendous amount of difference compared to even a couple of years ago. Growers now have been approached by several different carbon companies, so they are becoming more and more educated, which is great, and they’re knowing the right questions to ask, and they know the issues they want to adjust,” she told CropLife. “Especially with this Climate-Smart USDA grant, I think that’s given a lot of fuel to the fire, too. It’s here to stay.”
Tied for the largest USDA grant — worth $95 million — is the Midwest Climate-Smart Commodity Program, with the Iowa Soybean Association (ISA) acting as the lead partner.
The project also plans to reserve 20% of contracts for underserved populations supported by dedicated conservation agronomist technical assistance.
This project, says USDA, will build markets and provide funding to farmers via outcome-based contracts for the reduction and removal of carbon dioxide through the adoption of new climate-smart practices. The remaining project funding will support farmer enrollment assistance, carbon quantification, technical assistance support, measurement, reporting and verification, and underserved farmer outreach and enrollment.
According to USDA, monitoring for this project is planned to include remote sensing, field inspections, farmer operational records, field audits, and soil sampling. They plan to account for and track both N2O emission reductions and soil carbon sequestration separately at the field level. The project also plans to reserve 20% of contracts for underserved populations supported by dedicated conservation agronomist technical assistance.
"Recognizing ongoing and long-term need to dramatically scale-up farmer’s practice adoption across the Iowa landscape, the new Climate-Smart Commodity projects will add significant technical and financial assistance directly to implement combinations of practices,” ISA Research Center for Farming Innovation Co-Director Roger Wolf said in a statement.
“This is important as farmers are dealing with more intense wet and dry weather cycles, which directly impacts yields, and exacerbates soil erosion and nutrient losses,” he added. “The outcomes derived by the [climate-smart commodity] practices will help soybean production be more resilient and sustainable."
