At this point, it doesn’t look like it would make much economic sense for tree fruit growers to participate in carbon markets, which are designed to benefit the scale of larger commodity crops.
“It’s obvious that some kind of carbon capture program is going to be developed, and as I like to tell the officials in charge, the tree fruit industry is the original carbon-capturing industry.
The Biden administration, in fact, is unlikely to rely on regulatory action to pursue its climate goals and is more likely to rely on incentive programs. At this point, carbon markets are mostly voluntary and their rules are being set by the private sector, Knight said.
The rules and workings of carbon markets are still evolving, but Knight described the basic concept: If a company or government entity finds that it’s too difficult or expensive to reduce its own carbon emissions, it locates another entity — a farm, for example — that can lower its own emissions at a smaller cost and pays it a fee to do so.
Emerging carbon markets, however, are designed for corn, soybeans and other commodity crops with their tens of millions of acres.
Even if they were to participate, under current arrangements, apple growers might be paid $10 to $30 per acre for the carbon they sequester.
But it’s too early to say if those advantages can be monetized to an adequate degree, Powers said.
That probably concerns potato growers and beef producers more than fruit growers right now, but fruit growers need to pay attention to these trends, said Chad Kruger, director of Washington State University’s Wenatchee Tree Fruit Research and Extension Center and Center for Sustaining Agriculture and Natural Resources.