Meristem announces no-cost, no-hassle carbon intensity calculator

A new no-cost carbon calculator – allowing American farmers to anonymously measure the Carbon Intensity (CI) of their farm operations — was officially released here by Meristem Crop Performance.

″We want to help American farmers understand how four key Meristem products can take cost out, raise more bushels at less cost per bushel, and add farm income from their regenerative ag practices,″ said Meristem Founder and CEO Mitch Eviston in announcing the free online calculator. ″Meristem is not going to be buying carbon credits, but our product platform fits perfectly with regenerative ag practices that can be monetized through EQIP, Section 45Z and carbon emission offsets. We can help you win.″

Called the ″CI Estimator,″ the calculator is geared to providing growers an easy-to-use overview of the practices that affect an operation’s CI score. CI is an estimate of carbon emissions, and lower scores are better. Generally, increasing yield, decreasing synthetic inputs, reducing tillage and using cover crops will improve your score. 

″There’s never been a better time to be more efficient with crop inputs,″ said Eviston. ″The biologicals in EXCAVATOR AMS and those delivered through our patented BIO-CAPSULE® Technology can reduce your fertilizer spend, save you money on adjuvants and take out a tillage pass, and that adds savings and gains a lower CI score that can earn you money. We’re out to help American farmers take cost out and earn another $100 from every acre.″

With the CI Estimator, farmers can easily input their location and farming practices, as well as the type and amount of fertilizer they use, grain-drying fuel and other aspects that will impact CI. Colorful indicators offer information on what lowers a CI score. Use of the Estimator is free, though some growers are spending $5 to $10 per acre on similar offerings. 

″To Meristem’s credit, they are offering growers a chance to play with the tool, understand the variables, and really think it over,″ says Andy Jenks, Illinois farmer and founder of Verdova, the data company that partnered with Meristem to develop the calculator. ″What growers need to do right now is document their practices: Every tillage pass, every planting pass, every operational pass across the field, they need to know that to understand what their CI score is.″

No-cost CI Calculator:Geared to helping farming learn more about

how farming practices they already use could improve farm income.

Try it here: https://meristemag.com/ci-estimator/

Peter Rousonelos, Senior VP of Business Development for Meristem, who coined the phrase ″Biology Is Fertility™,″ wants farmers to understand that investing in EXCAVATOR AMS and other biologicals is investing in better plant nutrition. ″It’s really a fertilizer spend,″ he says. ″Independent research shows that EXCAVATOR releases 40 to 60 pounds of NPK from residue 45 to 60 days after application.″ He says EXCAVATOR AMS is one of four keys Meristem has to boost regenerative agriculture:

• Reduce tillage and take cost out of your fertilizer and adjuvant spend with EXCAVATOR^® AMS.

• Improve nitrogen use efficiency and reduce pounds per acre of applied phosphorus and potassium with MAINTAIN™ ELITE and N-GEAR^® Dual Action.

• Build big roots, healthy plants, and more bushels with REVLINE® HOPPER THROTTLE™.

• Replace traditional starter fertilizers, avoid high-salt starters and reduce fuel consumption with UPSHIFT^® C.

″I’ve never known an operation to go out of business by becoming more efficient,″ says Kelly Garrett, a sixth-generation farmer from Crawford County, Iowa currently farming 7,400 acres and operating a cow//calf operation. Garrett says he’s received more than $500,000 from regenerative ag payments of one kind or another in his operation. One of the hardest things farmers ″have to wrap their head around,″ he says, is answering the question ‘what are we selling?’ Farmers accustomed to earning money from soybeans falling into the truck and corn dumped into the grate at the elevator struggle with a farm product you can’t see or touch.

″So, I tell them what’s valuable is the data,″ he says. ″The data is what’s valuable because that is your tangible good to show what carbon you have, whether it’s an inset market or an offset market, the value is in the data. Whatever the path your farm needs to go on and whether you’re looking at $25 or $30 an acre or more, those buyers will need validation of your farming practices.″

″All plants naturally sequester carbon, that’s how Mother Nature intended it, so those of us who grow crops for a living are part of the solution,″ says Josh McClain, Kansas farmer and owner of Firebolt Ag, a provider of crop inputs and application who also recently began his own carbon program. ″As farmers, we can get paid for the work we already do. For some of us, it seems kind of strange, but in the current market, this can be just enough to keep a lot of farmers in the black.″ McClain’s business grew last year and many of his clients are beginning to see how their standard farming practices, geared to being more efficient and conservation-minded, can also bring in a new stream of revenue.

″You can see that it’s (carbon markets) becoming the next big thing,″ says Jeff Jarvis, a friend of McClain’s who farms in Phillips County, Kansas with his father, Rick. ″Carbon is on peoples’ minds, so it seems like it’s here to stay. The benefit to us is we don’t have to make big changes to what we’re doing already, and we still see some monetary benefit.″ Meristem’s Eviston says that the ultimate reason behind making their CI Estimator free online.

″Regenerative practices can bring profitability to the farm, and profitability is key to sustainability in farming,″ he says flatly. ″But in addition to the profitability that it brings, it also brings long term sustainability to the land. And ultimately, that’s mission critical: Making sure that the land is sustainable and productive to feed the next generation, too.″