Ohio Farmers Are Entering a New Market: the Carbon Trade

Jun 16, 2023

By Erin Gottsacker

Ohio farmers have been in the corn and soybean business for a long time.

But now, some are entering a new market: carbon farming.

That’s when farmers increase the amount of carbon stored in the soil — through practices like no-till planting — in exchange for credits, which they can then sell to corporations trying to reach net-zero emissions.

Organizations like Cargill and the Nature Conservancy have launched pilot carbon trading programs, and increasingly, Ohio farmers are trying them out.

“It’s picked up a lot of steam recently as so many companies have decided that they want to become carbon neutral,” said Brent Sohngen, an environment and resource economics professor with Ohio State University. “They look at America's farm and forest land as an opportunity to help them do that.”

How ‘carbon farming’ works

Trees and soil are carbon sinks, meaning they take carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere on a large scale.

“Right now in the U.S., about 700 to 800 million tons of carbon dioxide are sequestered every year in our agricultural systems,” Sohngen said.

That accounts for about 10% of the nation’s total greenhouse emissions.

“Our goal is to try to make it happen even more,” Sohngen said.

He says the key to doing that is incentivizing farmers to implement practices like no-till planting or using cover crops, which increase the amount of carbon stored in the soil.

Carbon trading programs reward those practices with credits. Farmers then sell those credits to corporations trying to reach carbon neutrality.

According to Sohngen, this is a mutually beneficial process – farmers get paid, while corporations take a step closer to their goals.

But not everyone agrees.

Critics argue carbon trading fails to address the root cause of the problem and allows corporations to continue emitting greenhouse gasses, rather than taking steps to eliminate emissions.

The future of carbon trading

Practically though, Sohngen says carbon trading is a powerful tool in the fight against climate change because most corporations are not currently able to completely cut emissions.

“Those companies out there – the Amazons, the Microsofts, the Shells, pretty much every company out there that is selling you and I products by emitting carbon dioxide – they're trying to become carbon neutral,” Sohngen said. “But they can't do it.”

That’s because even tasks as critical as transportation still largely rely on fossil fuels.

Click here to see more...

Video: Dicamba Returns for Georgia Farmers: What the New EPA Ruling Means for Cotton Growers

After being unavailable in 2024 due to registration issues, dicamba products are returning for Georgia farmers this growing season — but under strict new conditions.

In this report from Tifton, Extension Weed Specialist Stanley Culpepper explains the updated EPA ruling, including new application limits, mandatory training requirements, and the need for a restricted use pesticide license. Among the key changes: a cap of two ½-pound applications per year and the required use of an approved volatility reduction agent with every application.

For Georgia cotton producers, the ruling is significant. According to Taylor Sills with the Georgia Cotton Commission, the vast majority of cotton planted in the state carries the dicamba-tolerant trait — meaning farmers had been paying for technology they couldn’t use.

While environmental groups have expressed concerns over spray drift, Georgia growers have reduced off-target pesticide movement by more than 91% over the past decade. Still, this two-year registration period will come with increased scrutiny, making stewardship and compliance more important than ever.