Today. The concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is more
than 50% higher than it was during the pre industrial era. In an
effort to fight climate change, many industries are grappling with
how to reduce her offset their carbon emissions. Illinois public
media is Dana Cronin reports on how farms are becoming a frontrunner
in the race to reduce carbon
It's springtime on Jason lays farm in Bloomington, Illinois.
We're standing on one of his 75 acre fields, which during the growing
season is covered with corn or soybeans. But today the field is dotted
with a grass like grain called cereal. Rye. It's a cover crop, which
goes in during the winter months. And what that does is it helps
hold the carbon dioxide, the greenhouse gasses.
It helps hold them so they don't get released out into the atmosphere.
Instead of leaving his field alone in the winter, A uses the ride
to help fight climate change.
And these 75 acres of cover crops are keeping a lot of carbon out
of the atmosphere
would be about
Hopefully, a ton an acre. So about 75 tons across this whole field.
That's equivalent to the emissions of 15 gas powered cars, driven
for one year is part of a growing number of farmers across the country,
starting to experiment with these cover crops, thanks to something
called the carbon marketplace.
The marketplace works like this. Let's say there's a company like
a factory or manufacturer that needs to offset their carbon emissions
because of self imposed goals or government regulations, they can
go to big corporate agriculture companies like Bayer, for example,
and purchase carbon credits. Bayer, in turn, pays farmers like Lay
to plant these carbon capturing cover crops, which offset the company's
emissions.
These carbon programs are popping up across the agriculture industry,
targeting everything from corn and soybean farms in the Midwest to
cotton fields in the South, Absolutely am a believer that carbon
credits are part of the
Move to reduce the overall pressure on the atmosphere.
Kris Harbor, is chief strategy officer at Indigo, a farming technology
company.
Unlike older agriculture companies, Indigo focuses exclusively on
sustainability. Right now, we can get every farmer on earth to change
their behavior. If we incented it correctly, and they have the infrastructure.
The equipment there already dispersed across the globe to make that
happen immediately.
But Harper acknowledges scaling up would be difficult.
The U. S. Department of Agriculture reports. Only 4% of farmland
is planted with cover crops, and only a small fraction of those farms
are enrolled in carbon programs.
To help bring more onboard. Indigo offers farmers short five year
contracts. But some climate experts say it's going to take long term
commitments to reduce the concentration of carbon in our atmosphere
for the climate we really need, I would say durability of carbon
stored on
Timescales of 100 years. Amador is the co founder of carbon 1 80,
a nonprofit focused on carbon removal, she argues, when it comes
to making a real den in the climate crisis, we need to focus on how
to reduce carbon overall, not just offset it.
But Amador says paying farmers to sequester carbon is ultimately
a good thing.
What's exciting about these voluntary offset market is that provides
an incentives for farmers to shift practices and potentially helps
with some of those financing challenges. I mean, it's the
Obvious American answer. You give me more and I'll figure out how