By Gary Wyatt and Diomy Zamora, University of Minnesota Extension

Minnesota agricultural producers, grassland and woodland owners have an opportunity to receive payments for their “carbon crop,” their land’s ability to remove carbon from the atmosphere.

Carbon credits — credit payments for greenhouse gas emissions reductions— are available for conservation tillage methods, recent plantings of perennial grass and trees, and existing sustainably-managed forests.

Carbon credits are sold through the Chicago Climate Exchange. The credits are purchased by companies like DuPont and Ford, or universities such as the University of Minnesota, to help aid and abate global climate change through carbon sequestration.

According to the Environmental Protection Agency, carbon sequestration is the process through which agricultural and forestry practices remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Trees and plants act as “sinks,” absorbing carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas emitted by human activities, while releasing oxygen and storing carbon.

Carbon trading can moderate the effects of global climate change. It can also help protect and improve soil and water quality, wildlife habitat, and introduce sustainable land-use options in Minnesota’s rural communities. Payments for carbon sequestration also reward landowners for implementing more sustainable land use options.

Carbon credit payments are currently offered for
< Low-tillage planted crop fields (defined as no-tillage and strip-tillage);
< New grassland planted after Jan. 1, 1999 (alfalfa and grass hay fields, grass around wetlands);
< New tree plantings planted after Jan. 1, 1990 (tree farm plantings, shelterbelts, windbreaks);
< On-farm methane digesters;
< Existing sustainably-managed forests.

Landowners enrolled in state or federal conservation programs including the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) may also be eligible for carbon credit payments. For example, if the carbon credits for grasslands were sold at $3 per metric ton, at 1 metric ton per acre, the landowner would receive $3 per acre for that contract year. However, as in any market, prices fluctuate from year to year.

A landowner who wishers to sell carbon credits must contact an aggregator such as Farm Bureau (www.agragate.com), Farmers Union (www.nfu.org), or Delta Carbon (www.deltacarbon.com).

University of Minnesota Extension offers classes on carbon credit payments. Participants can learn how plantings sequester carbon and how landowners qualify for payments. For more information on the classes, visit www.extension.umn.edu/Woodlands and click on “Woodland Advisor Scheduled Classes.”

(Gary Wyatt and Diomy Zamora are natural resources educators with University of Minnesota Extension.)