Farmers can help improve global climate with carbon credits

By David Bau
University of Minnesota Extension

Farmers can now sell carbon credits for storing carbon in the soil to help pay for conservation tillage methods, or plantings of perennial grass and trees.

I have received many questions on this topic and recently attended a workshop on carbon credits provided by Rural Advantage. The carbon credits are a path for landowners to help aid and abate the global climate change through carbon sequestration.

The Chicago Climate Exchange is a voluntary market created in 2003 that trades carbon credits. Currently carbon credits are trading around $4; a credit is a metric ton of carbon dioxide.

In order to trade carbon credits, you must be an aggregator or collector of the credits. Many individuals will not qualify as an aggregator because of minimum asset requirements. This is where North Dakota’s Farmers Union and Iowa’s Farm Bureau have taken the lead as aggregators for their respective organizations in 14 states. Individuals and farmers can go to www.nfu.org for information about selling carbon credits with Farmers Union, or to http://www.iowafarmbureau.com/special/carbon/default.aspx for the Farm Bureau site.

Land that is eligible to be enrolled in the Carbon Credit Program must be capable of being cropped, even though it currently may be in a harvested grass or forage crop. It must be designated as “cropland” on Farm Service Agency maps.

Timelines for three different establishment methods are:
— Conservation farming such as no-till or strip-till practices (disturb less than 30 percent of soil surface) on land that did not previously have them can receive a carbon credit of one-half metric ton of carbon dioxide per acre per year.
— Grass plantings planted after Jan. 1, 1999, can be enrolled and receive a credit of three-quarters of a metric ton of carbon dioxide per acre (this includes land in CRP).
— Land that’s been forested since Jan. 1, 1990, can also receive carbon credits.