Aligning Quality Assurance for Agricultural Carbon Credits with Farm Bill Conservation

The growing number of corporate net-zero pledges and promises to reduce emissions, spurred by pressure from consumers, shareholders, and employees, is leading to the emergence of voluntary carbon markets—carbon markets independent of government mandated emission reductions or regulatory structure. Because agricultural soil can provide a carbon sink, depending on management practices and soil type, many agricultural producers and landowners are poised to generate carbon credits and supplement farm income by selling those credits to corporations seeking to offset emissions. However, carbon crediting programs qualify credits through assurances that the credits are additional to a business-as-usual scenario, remain permanent, and avoid leakage. These quality assurance mechanisms make sense for some credits but often serve as a barrier to generating credits in the agricultural context.

Essentially, carbon crediting programs that rigidly apply these quality assurance mechanisms penalize farmers who already capture and store carbon through management practices, despite the added complexity and risks associated with those management practices. Moreover, applying quality assurance mechanisms to agricultural credits in the same way they would be applied to credits generated through other means, favors well-funded, large-scale productions, which risks further industrializing and consolidating agriculture. This article outlines the history of carbon markets starting with the multiple failed attempts at establishing a compliance market and details the existing agricultural conservation programs that would serve as a barrier to farmers entering carbon markets. Further, this article proposes an adaptable approach by crediting programs to assessing the quality of agricultural credits, allowing more farmland owners to enter carbon markets.