Proponents of carbon farming tout a host of benefits, including meeting climate goals — but critics warn it’s just another greenwashing tactic that benefits Big Business and hurts small farmers.
President Joe Biden has referred to soil as “the next frontier for storing carbon,” and some lawmakers and business leaders have described carbon as a new “commodity crop.”
Combine the two — soil and carbon — and you get “carbon farming” — a practice its proponents say could help reduce carbon in the atmosphere and achieve climate-related targets.
DGB Group, a developer of large-scale carbon and biodiversity projects, defines carbon farming as “an agricultural method that captures atmospheric carbon, storing it in the soil, through land management practices, such as regenerative agriculture and reforestation.”
According to DGB Group, which is a subsidiary of a publicly held Netherlands-based holding company that acquires businesses in the energy, agricultural and animal sectors, carbon farming “helps to increase the resilience of natural systems, promote biodiversity, and mitigate the impacts of a changing climate.”
Some believe carbon farming also is a potential revenue stream for farmers and ranchers that’s gaining popularity among large corporations — including Apple, BP, Cargill, Facebook, General Mills, Google, McDonald’s, Microsoft and Target — which buy carbon credits from farmers to offset their emissions.
But critics say there is little evidence carbon farming works as well as promised, and that it’s unclear whether the practices can be carried out over long periods and on a massive scale without undercutting food production.
They also argue the programs can create opportunities for “gamesmanship and greenwashing that undermine real progress on climate change,” turning the programs into “big business” for “big polluters.”
In an interview with The Defender, Claire Robinson, managing editor of GMWatch, said:
“Carbon farming is yet another way that agribusiness corporations are gaining control over land and farmers.
“Big seed and agrochemical companies like Bayer are taking over land and instructing farmers to plant trees or adopt certain practices dictated by the company, in the name of sequestering carbon, so that the company can profit from selling ‘carbon credits’ on the international market.
“In reality, ‘carbon farming’ is a greenwashing exercise that is driven by corporate control of the food and agriculture systems.”
Souparna Lahiri, senior climate and biodiversity policy adviser for the Global Forest Coalition, also told The Defender he believes corporations are taking advantage of carbon farming programs:
“We have examples in the U.S. where agribusiness companies like Cargill have brought landowners under carbon-farming schemes … promising them money in lieu of those carbon credits. These carbon credits are then used by them to offset their emissions.
“So, it is an offset scheme and does not contribute to emission reduction … Many of these are pilot projects. But, it’s happening.”
Carbon farming and climate goals
Climate change activists and proponents of carbon farming, including Bill Gates, argue that the agriculture, forestry and land use sector is “responsible for 24 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions — just one percentage point less than electricity,” and that
“More than one-third of earth’s ice-free surface is devoted to agriculture.”
According to Deutsche Welle, “Soils are vital carbon stores, but industrial farming, rather than absorbing CO2, often releases it into the atmosphere — for example through plowing which … can result in the degradation of the soil.”
As a result, the agriculture industry is being asked to help meet climate goals.
Supporters argue soil can act as a “vast carbon sink,” a “carbon sponge” or a “bank account” from which carbon can be “withdrawn” — or “deposited.”
“With the right methods, carbon can be sequestered long-term in soils — for decades, centuries or more,” according to the Pesticide Action Network, with “carbon sequestration” referring to “the practice of capturing carbon and preventing it from being released back into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide.”
Carbon farming methods include a range of “low-tech” practices, including growing perennial crops that grow year after year without any human disturbance to the soil, agroforestry, which includes the integration of trees and shrubs into annual crop production and “no-till systems,” which focus on alternatives to using plows, which disturb the soil.
Other methods include livestock rotation to avoid overgrazing; the use of biochar, which “enhances soil’s ability to retain nutrients, water, and increase carbon levels”; preserving grasslands, restoring and rewetting peatlands, planting crops with deep root systems, and letting plant materials accumulate and slowly decompose in the soil.
Proponents argue carbon farming methods improve soil health, protect against erosion, improve biodiversity, and helping farmers earn extra income, hire local employees and purchase new machinery.
According to The Counter, “Soils high in organic matter tend to be good soils: They are more resistant to drought, less prone to erosion, harbor more beneficial soil organisms, and are generally better at growing healthy crops with fewer synthetic inputs,” adding that “building soil carbon now looks like a key to planetary survival.”
Small farmers bear the cost
According to Carbon Market Watch, “the cost of monitoring, verifying and reporting [carbon capture] is extremely expensive and comes with huge uncertainties,” including challenges tracking potential carbon leaks.
Even Rabobank’s study notes that to achieve the sequestering of 3.6 metric tons of carbon per hectare annually, farmers will have to make “significant investments” in changing their farming practices, including hiring experts to perform soil analyses.
According to The Counter, “The cost of validating and verifying carbon sequestration is too high, while there is little financial value in carbon credits. As a result, “farmers are not necessarily incentivized to radically change their land management practices.”
Some critics argue that no-till farming “requires dousing fields with tonnes of … RoundUp (glyphosate) herbicide and planting seeds of its genetically-engineered Roundup-resistant soybeans or hybrid maize,” canceling out any environmental benefit.
Still, others argue that certain carbon farming practices can actually result in reduced yields — and a resulting clearance of more land for agriculture. Concerns have also been raised about upward pressures on commodity prices and on the ownership of data collected from farmers as part of carbon tracking and surveillance efforts.
For instance, one company promoting carbon farming, Indigo Ag, “analyzes one trillion data points from 120 large farms on a daily basis,” according to Civil Eats, who added that “Some worry the company could wield too much control over the data, to the detriment of farmers.”
And then there’s the fact that results are also far from instantaneous. According to the Soil Health Institute, it can take between three and five years for an increase in soil carbon to be detected, while farmers “will also need to take on the responsibility and potentially the financial liability for any carbon being released again” in the event of a soil disturbance.
‘Carbon farming is becoming big business’
According to The Washington Post, carbon farming “is becoming big business in this climate crisis” as markets are being created “that enable big polluters to write off some of their emissions by buying carbon credits.”
According to Reuters, “Critics have decried some schemes as greenwashing by polluting corporations and questioned the permanence of carbon captured by intensive row crop farming.
The Institute for Agriculture & Trade Policy says carbon farming “is part of a rapidly growing corporate agenda pushed by big polluters.”
And the Oxford Real Farming Conference calls carbon farming a “false climate solution,” stating that it will give agribusiness “false legitimacy,” allowing them “to expand their operations and gain access to new revenue streams from carbon financing and data grabbing” while “real” solutions like agroecology are under threat of being “co-opted.”
For example, in 2017, Microsoft purchased 600 tons of carbon offset credits from rice farmers in Arkansas, California and Mississippi, with the involvement of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Environmental Defense Fund, among others.
In 2022, Truterra LLC, a subsidiary of Land O’Lakes, sold $4 million in carbon offsets produced from practices such as carbon farming, to buyers such as Microsoft.
According to the MIT Technology Review, “Companies like BP, General Mills, Kellogg’s, Microsoft and Shell have all announced plans or joined initiatives that will direct their suppliers to adopt the techniques or pay farmers who do so to obtain so-called offsets credits,” allowing them to claim the carbon credits without reducing their own emissions.
A 2021 letter sent to the U.S. Congress from more than 200 non-governmental organizations opposing the Growing Climate Solutions Act of 2021 warned lawmakers about the potential for greenwashing, arguing that “Power plants, refineries and other polluters could purchase these carbon credits to offset their emissions, or even increase them.”
The act, which created a registration program for carbon credit markets at the USDA, was signed into law by President Biden on Dec. 29, 2022.
Similarly, last year, several grassroots groups, including Corporate Accountability, the Center for International Environment Law and Friends of the Earth, issued a joint call opposing a similar EU proposal to certify carbon offsets from farming. They claim such a program will encourage corporate “greenwashing.”
The Institute for Agriculture & Trade Policy has argued that carbon markets for farmers are inequitable, lock out most farmers, and result in increased pollution, benefitting Big Agriculture and Big Food and fueling farm concentration and consolidation.
According to GMWatch, “A programme promoted by the global seed and pesticide giant Bayer provides a good example of how this entrenched path to ‘carbon farming’ is being used to advance the agendas of agribusiness corporations.”
Monsanto, which Bayer acquired in 2016, had previously taken over the Climate Corporation, a digital agriculture company. This allowed Monsanto to develop “one of the first major digital agriculture platforms, which is now called Climate FieldView.”
FieldView “collects data from satellites and from sensors in farm fields and sensors on tractors and then uses algorithms to advise farmers on their farming practices — when and what to plant, how much pesticide to spray, how much fertiliser to apply, etc.”
Bayer subsequently launched its Carbon Program in the U.S. (known as the Carbon Initiative in Europe and Carbon+ in Brazil). Participating farmers are required to be enrolled in FieldView, which estimates the amount of carbon the farmers sequestered.
Farmers are “paid according to Bayer’s calculations,” while “Bayer uses that information to claim carbon credits and sell these in carbon markets,” according to GMWatch.
Another Bayer program, ForGround, is open to corporations, allowing them to claim carbon emissions reductions in their supply chains.
Purdue Agribusiness is participating in ForGround. Purdue’s feed grain suppliers will be enrolled in the program, allowing the company to track their carbon footprints and enabling it to market its chicken as “sustainable,” while benefitting from “in-depth information about its farmer suppliers … that it can use to maximise its profits.”
“Those who do not enroll may find themselves unable to sell soybeans and maize to Purdue, or they may be paid less by Purdue for their crops,” GMWatch adds.
Similarly, Cargill launched its “RegenConnect” program, that according to Reuters, “will use soil sampling, farm data and remote sensing to estimate the environmental benefit of practices like planting cover crops or not tilling soils, then pay growers $20 for every ton of the carbon sequestered,” while gathering farm data.
Investors like Bill Gates see big profits
Several firms are also touting the potential benefits of carbon farming — for investors.
Netherlands-based for-profit firm DGB Group, which focuses “on bringing excellence to the development and operation of carbon projects” with projects in several African countries, says “Carbon farming provides investors with the opportunity to invest in the future of our planet, with numerous benefits to the environment and your portfolio.”
Another firm, Indigo, which includes Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel in its board of directors, launched Carbon by Indigo, a voluntary carbon marketplace.
“Increased soil carbon sequestration and reduced greenhouse gas emissions from these practices can … generate registry-issued carbon credits, which are increasingly in demand by major corporations,” Indigo states. “Adding cover crops, reducing tillage, and other practices can help benefit your soil and your bottom line.”
As of 2020, Indigo had raised over $850 million, and in 2019, it launched its Terraton Initiative, with a goal of sequestering 1 trillion tons of carbon dioxide. According to Civil Eats, Indigo has also partnered “with ag data collecting companies such as John Deere’s cloud-based system and others … to monitor farming practices.”
Gates is also involved in carbon farming, as the founder of Breakthrough Energy Ventures.
In a 2019 post on his GatesNotes blog, he promoted this venture, writing “The goal with agriculture is not to reduce the amount created, but to reduce emissions per product. I’m involved with a group called Breakthrough Energy Ventures that is backing a number of creative solutions to tackle the problem.”
He said a focus on electricity and emissions from cows “won’t be enough if we don’t reach zero net emissions from every sector of the economy within 50 years,” noting that “there’s more carbon in soil than in the atmosphere and all plant life combined.”
Breakthrough Energy lists agricultural emissions as one of the world’s “five grand challenges,” requiring “significant changes to the ways we farm and eat.” Suggested solutions include “improving soil management” and “minimizing the consumption and waste of high-carbon foods” in favor of “plant-based meat and dairy products.”
Others promote blockchain technology as a solution that would make carbon farming more financially attractive for farmers.
One such firm, the Seattle-based Nori, “proposes using a blockchain-based platform to create a market in which companies that wish to offset their own carbon emissions can pay farmers directly for carbon sequestered.” Farmers are paid with Nori tokens, a type of cryptocurrency with “a value that fluctuates with market demand.”
According to Civil Eats, surveillance is the backbone of the Nori platform: “To measure the amount of carbon a farmer draws down, Nori relies on modeling that’s informed by a network of 1,200 federal soil sampling and testing sites,” while using a carbon accounting system developed at Colorado State University and funded by the USDA.
Another blockchain-based platform, the Regen Network, aggregates “different streams of data on a blockchain-based ledger and then [uses] that information to estimate the amount of carbon sequestered by land owners.”
Regen utilizes “optical and near infrared (NIR) sensors; microwave sensors or radar; and light imaging, detection, and ranging” — data which can be shared with Nori.
‘Great business model for agrochemical corporations, but it’s bad for everyone else.’
According to GMWatch, companies like Bayer are the main beneficiaries of carbon farming, which grants them “increasing control over farmers, dictating exactly how they farm and what inputs they use.”
For instance, Bayer will sell seeds from a subsidiary, CoverCress, to companies that are participating in the ForGround program. CoverCress has developed a gene-edited cover crop.
Robinson told The Defender that companies like Bayer sell genetically modified seeds “and their associated proprietary agrochemicals to farmers in a package with restrictions on how the seed is used — for example, farmers are not allowed to freely save seed and replant it.” She added:
“One of these practices is ‘no-till’ or ‘low-till’ agriculture. All too often this is used to mean GM herbicide-tolerant crops with glyphosate or even more toxic herbicides, that are supposed to kill weeds without the need to plough … until the weeds become resistant and more herbicides in ever more toxic formulations need to be applied.
“This is a great business model for agrochemical corporations, but it’s bad for everyone else.”
Instead of promoting carbon farming, Robinson calls for the increased uptake of alternative farming models. She told The Defender:
“We already know how farmers can help sequester carbon through agroecological, organic and genuinely regenerative systems that also bring social and other environmental benefits.
“A holistic approach is needed that doesn’t only focus on carbon but also on other elements, such as benefits to wildlife, farmers, rural communities, avoidance of polluting emissions and provision of a diversity of food crops grown without harmful chemicals.”