Michigan farmers now have a new option if they’re interested in carbon markets.
Corteva expanded its Carbon Initiative Program to 17 states this year, driven by farmer demand.
Drew Miller, carbon sales and support lead with Corteva, says it’s a way for farmers to generate additional income.
“The rules of the program to become eligible are essentially you have to have made a new practice change after harvest of 2020,” he says. “You have about two crop years to look back with that practice change. If you implemented cover crops, reduced your tillage, you’re able to qualify. Then you can get paid up to $30 for a carbon credit of carbon you sequester.”
Corteva has partnered with Indigo Ag to secure contracts to get farmers a fair price. Looking at this from a farmer’s perspective, Miller admits this money might not be enough to justify changing your practices.
“The practice change and the agronomy have to make sense in terms of the ROI that a farmer is looking for,” he says. “They want to prevent erosion, they want to have more weed suppression, there’s all sorts of different benefits of cover cropping that makes sense. Carbon is a way to offset the cost of that practice change in that bag of cover crop seed.”
With all the different carbon programs out there, Miller says two things sets Corteva’s apart: putting the farmer first and creating high-quality, premium credits.
“You have a lot of scientific rigor in the program as well, while some other programs out there aren’t requiring as much from a scientific perspective,” says Miller. “That means we have higher quality credits, and farmers are selling a more legitimate credit. That’s going to continue to grow as we move into the future.”
With the state expansion, Corteva also expanded eligible crops to include corn, soybeans, and sugarbeets. To enroll and learn more, we have a link available on this story on our website.
