Soil Health

Why
Farmers can adopt soil health practices like cover crops, no till, and diverse crop rotations that store carbon in the soil. That carbon can then be used to offset a private company's emissions.

What
Farmers will implement one of three practices and receive financial assistance: cover crops, no-till, and diverse rotations. Soils will be sampled at the outset of enrollment and both carbon and water quality benefits will be quantified.

When
Year one sign ups will be May 1 - June 15, 2021 and continue for up to five years or until funds run out. To learn more and enroll, please reach out to your preferred project representative at the Upper Big Blue or Central Platte NRDs, The Nature Conservancy, or Cargill.

How
Farmers can sign up for a joint NRCS and private payment of $9.50 - 45.00 per acre per year, depending on practice. Payments are not linked to carbon stored. Ecosystem Services Market Consortium will quantify outcomes. Non-NRCS contracts are non binding.

PAYMENTS
$9.50 - 45.00/acre annually of financial assistance. Payment depends on type of soil health practice and enrollment in the ESMC pilot. Practices can include reduced tillage, diverse rotations, and cover crops, according to NRCS practice codes.

Payments to producers will be paid by acres of practice adopted, instead of being linked to carbon storage. Ecosystem Services Market Consortium (ESMC) will quantify carbon and water quality outcomes.

There is no gross income or acre enrollment cap for NRCS payments, but producers are encouraged to enroll a reasonable number of acres given their operation size and soil health experience. More acres can always be submitted for enrollment in following years

A producer can choose to enroll in just the NRCS component or just the ESMC component if they choose. However, to receive the full payments and benefits of the project, we encourage them to enroll in both aspects of the project if they are able.

REPORTS
Each producer will receive a report on the new practice's soil carbon and water quality outcomes. If they opt in to providing additional economic data, producers can also receive a detailed report on the practice's financial return on investment (ROI).

TRAINING
Year round assistance from NRD, NRCS, and TNC staff to support paperwork/application process and soil health practice management. Opportunity to attend training events, post-COVID, with local and national leaders in soil health, agronomy, and other relevant topics. Meals will be included.

SHARING
Share conservation stories with a larger audience. Producers can take part in or lead field days, media spots, short project videos, etc.

All farmers and landowners are encouraged to seek out the ecosystem and carbon payments platform that works best for their situation. ESMC is a collaborator on this project because they offer a low-risk way for farmers to explore carbon market payments for new soil health practices. Specifically:

Contract is Non-Binding
Farmers will sign annual contracts. If they choose to not renew their contracts, they can leave the program without penalty from ESMC to enable farmers to try it without a binding, multi-year contract.

Payments are Non-Variable
Many other carbon payments are variable year to year and based on actual carbon storage rates. This pilot will pay farmers a flat rate of $3/acre per year regardless of current market payment rates or the amount of carbon stored per year to give farmers certainty around the level of revenue they'll generate through this project.

Simplified Data Collection
ESMC is piloting multiple data collection methods, including remote imaging, to reduce the data burden placed on farmers. All farms enrolled in the ESMC Pilot will be sampled at the outset of the project and again in year 5, should the producer remain enrolled for the entire 5 years of the project.

ESMC is Non-Profit
ESMC's non-profit structure minimizes transaction costs and maximizes value for farmers. They are a private-public partnership,
with backing from Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research.

Our project is committed to ensuring that farmers are the primary beneficiaries of any value derived from their data.

Privacy
Farmers own their raw data and control the fate of their data including who sees it, how it's used, and where and how long it's stored. Rights to their carbon are only transferred when they sign up with ESMC and complete data entry. Data will be stored by ESMC on a secure server for the duration of the producer's enrollment plus three additional years. The only entities automatically able to view farmer names, locations, and project data are TNC and ESMC. Other project coordinators will not have access to raw farmer data without the express consent from the farmer.  The only publicly shared data will be around whole-project outcomes, i.e., no publicly available information can be linked to any one farmer or location.

Transparency
Farmers can choose to share their data with other project partners. Additional project partners could include The Central Platte and Upper Big Blue NRDs, The Nature Conservancy, and/or Colorado State University. Farmers will not be penalized in any way by not opting in to sharing their data with additional project partners.

Simplicity
We are committed to collecting only the data needed to meet project outcomes - no more, and no less.

A producer retains their rights to project carbon until they sign the Producer Agreement with ESMC and receive the $3/acre payment, at which point ESMC will transfer rights to the producer's carbon to project buyers (McDonalds, Target, and Cargill).  We estimate that the project will generate 150,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (C02-e), but the final tally will depend on calculations done by ESMC based on soil sampling and model estimates.

In this project, any resulting carbon was "prepaid" for by the funding companies. Farmers will be paid for acres of practices adopted and not based on rate of carbon storage. This means that the companies have already taken a risk that the project's enrolled acres may not generate the entire 150,000 metric tons of C02-e they paid for. This was done to shift the risk of under-storing carbon to the companies and not to the farmers.

One major difference between this project and others is that payments will be tied to the total acres of soil health practices and not soil carbon sequestered. We did this because we want farmers to know the costs and benefits of the project at the outset. Carbon storage, and the associated payments, could be highly variable.

While this pilot will pay farmers $3/acre up front for their potential carbon, the eventual ESMC marketplace will compensate farmers for the actual quantity of carbon stored, one year post-quantification.

As the science improves, it will be less risky to link payments to carbon. But for now, we did not want producers to take on the risk of unknown payments by signing up for this project. Another difference between this project and others is that we have no acreage minimums for enrollment.

Finally, farmers will retain ownership over their raw data.

If a producer falls behind on the contract schedule and the reason is not within their control (beyond normal farming risks), NRCS will do a rescheduling modification, i.e., extend out the contract a year or two. If the reason is within their control, NRCS will allow one rescheduling modification with a notice of contract violation using form CPA-153, giving the producer up to 12 months to correct the violation. If the producer has not completed a practice within the specified time frame on the CPA-153, NRCS would reassess the situation. Continued violation may result in contract termination.

If a farmer exits their NRCS contract before the expiration date with incomplete items and the reason is in good faith or for circumstances that occurred not within the producer's control (death, repeated weather events, etc) and NRCS/Partners are in agreement, we can cancel the contract and with no penalty.

Similarly, a producer will not be eligible for the $3/acre annual payment in years they are unable to implement the practice, but they will have the option of extending their enrollment to make up for that payment at the end of the project. Producers are, however, still encouraged to access other project features during years that they are unable to implement the practice(s). Those benefits include lunch events, opportunities to speak with the press, and technical assistance.