June 27, 2024

By Lynda Kiernan-Stone, Global AgInvesting Media

Despite being a contributor, agriculture is also one of the most vulnerable sectors to climate change. But regenerative growing practices, which work with nature to optimize the health of the entire ecosystem, offer growers the ability to build healthy soils that can protect crops from uncertain rainfall patterns, reduce the need for inputs, reduce farm costs and risks, restore biodiversity, and strengthen the long-term value of the land. 

However, quantifying, or rating regenerative agriculture practices presents challenges due to the complexity and variability of ecosystems, the diversity of practices involved, and the lack of standardized metrics. Addressing these challenges is critical to understanding and demonstrating the value of regenerative agriculture, thereby supporting its broader adoption.

But the tide is turning, according to BeZero Carbon, which has announced a significant step forward in the advancement of soil-related agricultural practices with its launch of the first public ex post rating of a large-scale regenerative agriculture project.

The project, which is based in North America, is a Soil Carbon & Agriculture project aiming to promote a range of agricultural management practices that increase soil organic carbon storage such as fertilizer use, tillage, crop rotations, and cover cropping. It is the first carbon project applying the Soil Enrichment Protocol, V1.0, with approximately 400 growers across 5,000 fields in 21 U.S. states.

As its first rating, BeZero Carbon has assigned a BBB rating for this initiative, reflective of its potential to be able to either remove or avoid a ton of CO₂e. The company noted, “The BeZero Carbon Rating (BCR) of voluntary carbon credits represents BeZero Carbon’s current opinion on the likelihood that a given credit achieves a tonne of CO₂e avoided or removed. It uses an eight point scale ranging from highest (AAA) to lowest (D)”

Additionally, Oklahoma-based Rebellion Energy Solutions announced that its initial methane abatement project received a BeZero Carbon rating of “A” on June 12 of this year, placing it in the top 6 percent of the projects for which BeZero Carbon has issued rating for this year. 

“This A rating of Rebellion’s initial methane-abatement project is additional validation of our strategy to generate high-quality carbon credits by tackling the environmental and health and human safety problem that orphan oil and gas wells create,” said Staci Taruscio, CEO, Rebellion. “By plugging orphan oil and gas wells, we have generated methane-abatement credits with a certain, verified and immediate positive effect that will endure.”

And while most of the previous projects rated by BeZero focused on methane reduction, the company recognized that regenerative agriculture is taking a prominent position in global agriculture – a sector that is responsible for 26 percent of all global greenhouse gas emissions. 

“The vast majority of emissions within this category are from livestock & fisheries, crop production, and land use,”¹ noted BeZero Carbon. “Therefore, the reduction of emissions associated with food production represents a critical frontier in the fight against climate change. Incentivising farmers and ranchers to implement regenerative practices through carbon finance mechanisms can reduce these emissions as well as increase soil carbon sequestration, contributing to our long term future.”

1. Poore, J. & Nemecek, T. Reducing food’s environmental impacts through producers and consumers. Science 360, 987–992 (2018).

~ Lynda Kiernan-Stone is editor in chief with GAI Media, and is managing editor and daily contributor for Global AgInvesting’s AgInvesting Weekly News and Agtech Intel News. She can be reached at lkiernan-stone@globalaginvesting.com.

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