Farmers Touting Tech to Lower Carbon Score

August 07, 2024

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by Cindy Zimmerman (Energy.AgWired.com) Farmers discussed the potential for technology to help lower their carbon intensity (CI) scores at the recent Tech Hub LIVE conference in Des Moines.

Brad McDonald, an Iowa farmer and Chief Operating Officer of Continuum Ag, talked about how incentives for adopting regenerative agriculture practices such as cover crops and no till to lower CI scores could generate a new revenue stream for farmers who sell grain to ethanol plants.

“So us as farmers can help the ethanol industry lower their CI score by producing a low CI grain. How do we do it? By using cover crops, no-till, and manure instead of synthetics. If you do those three things, that’s the trifecta to lower your score,” McDonald said. “And now I’m providing a brand new value to the ethanol industry that I should be compensated for. So at the end of the day it’s all tied to what is your actual score of the practices that you’re implementing on your farm.”

Scott Henry who farms in Nevada, Iowa, shared that he’s interested in technology that helps him simplify. “Whether it be carbon intensity scores or certain practices and products that help us reduce reliance upon synthetics that are out there….where we’re trying to really focus our operation is if we can simplify things on the farm and so that would that’s first and foremost.”

Other breakout sessions and roundtable discussions at the conference focused on ways ag tech companies can help farmers adopt these practices that could start generating a premium for their crop starting in 2025. READ MORE

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Excerpt from Farm Journal Smart Farming: In the near future, those incentives will also include climate change mitigation.

You’ll be rewarded for practices that minimize soil disturbance and sequester carbon, such as no-till, strip-till and cover cropping.

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“Farmers who learn as much as possible about cover crops now will fare much better than those who go whole hog the first time they plant cover crops,” says (Ken) Ferrie, who serves as a Farm Journal field agronomist. “No-till and covers need to become part of your farm resume before incentive programs, or climate-conscious landowners, require you to grow them.

“The experience you gain by trying cover crops on a small scale will help you evaluate deals offered by the government or by landowners,” Ferrie adds.

Here are some tips to shorten your learning curve:

1. Set an objective.
Decide what you want to accomplish — for example: compaction mitigation, erosion control, improved soil health, increased biodiversity and nitrogen fixation. Then choose a cover species that accomplishes your goal and fits your climate and farm operation.

2. Think like a scientist — neither optimistic nor pessimistic.
“If you or a neighbor has had a bad experience with cover crops, try to figure out what went wrong and use that knowledge to help guide your new trials,” Ferrie says.

3. Start small.
“Expect hiccups, and learn from them,” Ferrie advises.

4. Seize can’t-miss opportunities.
“While most cover crops do not produce an immediate financial return, there are a few situations where planting covers is a no-brainer,” Ferrie says. “One is planting a cover after silage harvest and grazing or chopping it for forage, and where sandy soil is subject to blowing, planting into a cover can reduce wind erosion and protect the young plants.”

5. Begin with easy-to-manage cover crops that winterkill.

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6. Don’t expect higher yield or lower production cost, at least not right away.

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7. Calculate both your financial ROI as well as your true ROI.

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8. Become an expert terminator.

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9. Learn to manage pests.

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10. Understand the risks.
“Some years, covers delay planting by keeping soil wetter and colder,” Ferrie says. “If it turns dry in June, they might pull out all the soil moisture and lock up the cash crop until it rains. This can have a big impact on yield.”

Calculate Your Cover Crop ROI

“In our studies, we’re excited to see equal yields, let alone a yield increase, following a cover crop,” says Farm Journal field agronomist Ken Ferrie. “But equal yield leaves no room to pay for seed, establishment and termination of the cover crop.”

“Deciding whether cover cropping is sustainable for your operation requires knowing the cover crop’s financial ROI, income minus expenses, and its true ROI, which includes less tangible factors,” Ferrie says. “Some growers want to reduce erosion, water runoff or nutrient leaching, improve soil health or increase biological diversity. For them, growing a cover crop might produce a negative financial ROI, but knowing they are improving their land creates a positive true ROI.“

Based on Farm Journal studies, the financial ROI from cover crops won’t be high enough to persuade many farmers to plant covers on cash-rented acres.

Using average results from multiple treatments across an entire farm, this chart compares the corn yield from early- and late-killed cereal rye in no-till and strip-till to strip-tilling without a cover crop (the farmer’s normal practice). The difference between the best cover crop yield (strip-till with early kill) and strip-tilling without a cover crop was 7 bu. per acre, worth $35 at $5 per bushel. If the operator’s cost to plant and terminate the cover crop was $50 per acre, they would need an incentive payment of $85 per acre to justify cover cropping.

“Within our customer base, the cost of establishing cover crops ranges from $35 to $85 per acre,” Ferrie explains. “If yield slips, and it often does, that puts pressure on growers.”

That situation is likely to lead to strong incentive programs from government agencies.

“Right now, current incentive programs can offset some of your cost as you learn to grow cover crops and calculate financial and true ROI,” Ferrie says. “With that knowledge, you can evaluate future incentives that might benefit your farm and the environment.” READ MORE

Excerpt from Civil Eats: The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) annual emissions inventory report showed that emissions from the agricultural sector dropped by nearly 2 percent, falling from 10.6 to 9.4 percent of total greenhouse gas emissions between 2021 and 2022—the sharpest drop of all sectors in 2022. In response, the American Farm Bureau’s president, Zippy Duvall, attributed the shift to U.S. farmers adopting climate-friendly practices through “voluntary and market-based programs that support farmer efforts in sustainable agriculture practices.”

However, the report doesn’t support the conclusion that a bump in conservation practices drove the drop in emissions. Instead, while there is plenty of uncertainty, the most likely causes are fewer cattle burping methane and less fertilizer use. Concentrated feedlot cattle farming and fertilizer production are among the biggest drivers of emissions from agriculture.

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Reduced Fertilizer Use

The drop in nitrous oxide emissions could also be driven by less fertilizer use, related to the dramatic surge in fertilizer prices in 2021 and 2022, beyond what farmers could afford. This coincided with Russia’s attack on Ukraine, which disrupted fertilizer supply chains. In response, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) noted that farmers made different business calculations: “Some producers may have chosen to reduce the overall acreage planted, while others chose to maintain acreage but change crop mix or modify other practices,” the USDA commented in a 2022 report.

This is likely especially true for farmers growing corn, the most widely planted crop in the U.S., primarily grown to produce ethanol. “Corn is the main driver of nitrogen fertilizer use,” said Lilliston. But as fertilizer prices surged, “a lot of commodity farmers responded by planting more soybeans, which doesn’t require as much fertilizer,” he noted.

Rather than a permanent shift, this suggests a more temporary fluctuation. Lilliston expects nitrous oxide emissions to rebound in the EPA’s next report, as fertilizer prices leveled in 2023 and the U.S. produced a record corn crop. READ MORE