Corteva Agriscience delivers initial round of carbon payments to U.S. farmers

Corteva, Inc. (NYSE: CTVA) announced payments to farmers who produced credits as participants in the 2021 pilot of Corteva Agriscience’s Carbon Initiative. This is a significant milestone in the quest to validate carbon markets in the agriculture sector, as building solutions that support and incentivize farmers to reduce these emissions is critical for the food system at large.

This pilot — which first launched Corteva’s Carbon Initiative in April 2021 to corn and soybean farmers in Illinois, Indiana and Iowa — was designed to test the ability of the company to deliver scalable scope 3 emissions outcomes for food company buyers that would be consistent with climate accounting guidance. Corteva Agriscience has paired this commercial pilot with fundamental research, including soil sampling acres beyond what current certification agency requirements, creating a dataset that serves as a baseline for monitoring the progress on these acres over time.

″In partnership with our strategic collaborators, Corteva Agriscience is moving the needle when it comes to delivering carbon solutions at scale in agriculture,″ said Emma Fuller, Carbon and Ecosystems Program Leader with Corteva Agriscience. ″Soils are a high-potential pathway for reducing and sequestering carbon to address greenhouse gas emissions – but these programs must deliver real outcomes and work at scale on millions of acres to make an impact. That is where pilots, such as the scope 3 work through Corteva’s Carbon Initiative, are critical.″

Building on this pilot, Corteva’s Carbon Initiative completed its first major expansion in August 2021 through a joint effort with Indigo Ag, a collaborator whose investments in science and technology have continued to expand eligibility and improve the measurement, reporting and verification required to produce high quality carbon outcomes.

"Scientifically rigorous quantification is the key to success for both sides of the agricultural sustainability market – from growers looking to translate their efforts to the most value, to the companies looking to reduce their scope 3 emissions with confidence and trust in the realness of the results," said A.J. Kumar, Vice President of Sustainability Sciences with Indigo Ag. ″Our use of the DayCent-CR model to estimate soil organic carbon changes in agriculture in this pilot is a powerful demonstration of how this best-in-class science can be implemented at scale.″

As shared at Corteva Agriscience’s 2022 Investor Day, there are over one million acres currently enrolled in the program. The company anticipates releasing the next round of farmer payments in the coming months.