Because there are a flood of new contracts being offered to farmers to sequester carbon in soil, I thought it would be interesting to look at the six basic building blocks for these contracts.
Whether it’s an 80 acre corn field or a 1000 acre grazing pasture, the first part of any soil carbon contract is the enrollment of land into the program.
One unique aspect of these protocols is that they are often like the terms of service for an online platform in that they can change from year to year.
At least annually, the carbon platform collects agricultural data from the farmer to confirm the protocols were followed and to estimate the amount of carbon sequestered.
However, a farmer who sequesters enough soil carbon to generate 100 carbon credits could, in theory, sign contracts with two carbon platforms to measure the same soil carbon on the same acres.
At the end of the process, the carbon credit is ready for sale by the carbon platform to a buyer that wants to offset its carbon emissions.
Of course, soil carbon contracts are much more complicated than these six building blocks.