AgroPages-Corteva Agriscience to create challenge grants to advance climate positive agriculture-Agricultural news

Corteva Agriscience (NYSE: CTVA) announced yesterday a $500,000 commitment to create the Corteva Agriscience Climate Positive Challenge to catalyze a movement toward climate-positive agriculture. The grant program will be launched next year and reward efforts that offset carbon emissions and protect the environment while sustaining farms and farmers.

The challenge grants will provide financial rewards to farmers who are already advancing innovative climate-positive practices for collaborating with local environmental groups, universities, growers or others in the ag value chain to help scale the effort beyond their own acres.

“We understand the challenges farmers around the world are facing as it relates to trade, policy and weather challenges,” said James C. Collins, Jr., Chief Executive Officer of Corteva Agriscience. “These reasons are our primary drivers for announcing this now - to provide incentives for those farmers that have a keen eye for scaling their practices.”

Collins first introduced the concept of climate-positive agriculture at last year’s World Food Prize. Since then, the company had meetings with farmers and organizations representing every facet of agriculture and food production on the forefront of advancing agricultural sustainability. The discussions explored what it would take to create a carbon-negative and climate-positive agriculture industry around the world.

“Clearly, there’s a thirst and passion to collaborate and coordinate so that we can best tackle what is undoubtedly the biggest challenge of our lifetimes,” said Collins.

Corteva is already working toward creating market-driven financial incentives for farmers. The company’s subsidiary, Granular, is collaborating with Nori, the world’s leading carbon dioxide removal marketplace. The site connects buyers of carbon offsets with farmers who are applying sustainable farming practices and provides them with a viable carbon credit market that will generate revenue.

“This is just the beginning,” said Collins. “There’s so much more we – and all of us working together – can do.”