OCP Group, Bioline by Invivo, Agrorobótica and Sementes Tropical launch their first carbon farming and certification project to support sustainable agriculture in Brazil

OCP Group, the global leader in plant nutrition and the world’s largest producer of phosphate-based fertilizers has announced a partnership for an initial carbon farming and certification project across Matto Grosso - the agricultural region which produces the majority of Brazil’s livestock and grains - alongside the farmers’ cooperative Bioline by Invivo, and agtech company, Agrorobótica. The selected farmer is an early adopter of new technologies. At this point, the project will be covering areas of cotton, soybean and corn, which are representative of Brazilian agriculture.

The project stems from a shared belief that soil health management is essential to improving the environment, achieving food security and in working towards global net zero goals. This project is just the start of a larger collaboration between OCP Group, Bioline and Agrorobótica.

The partnership will encourage regenerative farming practices to enhance yield and soil quality through personalized digital solutions that are tailored to the area and the crop. To do this the project will apply Agrorobótica’s AI-led soil analysis tool – Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS) – to measure, report and verify carbon content and sequestration potential. LIBS is an analytical technique that uses a high-focused laser to create a micro plasma on the surface of the soil sample, in order to determine its elemental composition without generating any harmful chemical residues.

LIBS generates insights that enables a farmer to adopt the regenerative practices needed for sustainable agriculture. These practices enhance the soil’s capacity to sequester carbon and improve soil health and fertility, which in turn reduces carbon emissions, supports food security and helps to increase returns for farmers.

The carbon credits generated from the project provide a valuable source of income for the farmer and OCP will put the carbon credits that it receives from this partnership towards its own objectives of achieving Net Zero carbon emissions by 2040.

The partnership is OCP’s first step into carbon farming, reflecting its strategy to lead a sustainable agriculture transformation and encourage innovative smart practices to enhance yields and soil quality.

Hanane Mourchid, Chief Sustainability Officer of OCP Group, said: ″OCP Group promotes regenerative agriculture practices in Brazil, Africa and many areas around the world by supporting farmers through training, deploying the 4R approach and encouraging innovation. We are excited to contribute to this important step towards scaling up the carbon farming initiative. This at-scale project will create a new revenue for our farmers by rewarding them for their efforts in contributing to the global climate action. The project is a concrete way to unlock the potential of agriculture as a natural carbon sink that will help achieving the Paris Agreement objectives.″

Laurent Martel, Bioline by InVivo CEO, said: ″This project illustrates Bioline by InVivo’s commitment to accelerate agricultural solutions for the environment, by diversifying farmers’ incomes. Agriculture can regenerate the natural capital, agriculture is a solution to the climate crisis, and farmers must be paid for their regenerating actions. This project complements a series of initiatives incubated in France by Bioline on the low-carbon agricultural transition: we are launching a French Carbon Farming project: Carbone&Co, with French cooperatives, and created CarbonExtract, a digital monitoring, reporting and verification digital tool for carbon farming projects. Carbon farming is a nascent model that needs to be tested on different experimental grounds, alongside to other tools to finance the transition, and a global approach make a lot of sense to identify best approaches. We expect a lot from our partnership with OCP through this pilot who will feed our knowledge building to find, create and accelerate the solutions that will help farmers regenerate the environment and diversify their income.″

Fábio Angelis, Founder & CEO of Agrorobótica said: ″The purpose of AGROROBÓTICA is to contribute to food security and the mitigation of climate change on our planet.″

Aida Magalhães, CTO of Agrorobótica added: ″Through the IA AGLIBS PLATFORM, we digitize the management of soil fertility and plant nutrition, for the generation and commercialization of carbon credits in agriculture.The strategic partnership with OCP and BIOLINE makes it possible to bring our purpose to the farmer, bringing as value creation the increase in agricultural productivity and sustainability, with carbon monetization.″

Victor Griesang, Tropical Executive Director said: ″We are very happy to be able to participate in this project. We are very interested in developing ourselves in a sustainable way. We want to learn new methods, measure new points, learn about new technologies and adapt to an environmentally friendly agricultural production.″