Locus Agricultural Solutions, Solon, Ohio, an innovative agtech biological inputs company, in collaboration with Bluesource and Green Star Royalties, subsidiary of Star Royalties Ltd., announced April 11 that the globally recognized CarbonNOW carbon farming program is expanding by an additional one million acres.
The expansion comes in response to high carbon credit purchase interest from buyers and rapid enrollment from U.S. farmers.
Locus AG's CarbonNOW carbon farming program is built through a partnership with Bluesource, a leading carbon project developer that develops, manages, and monetizes carbon credits, and Green Star Royalties Ltd., a pure-green royalty and streaming company that provides funding to enable upfront payments to farmers. Announced just four months ago, the initial 320,000-acre CarbonNOW program is rapidly filling its first class of farmers.
One of the driving factors in the success of CarbonNOW is its high eligibility rate. Farmers who have already been using regenerative practices are eligible by treating acres with Locus AG's carbon-accelerating soil health probiotics.
As high fuel and input prices continue to rise, the chance to add a new farm revenue stream while building soil health, increasing fertility utilization and increasing yields are reasons farmers are joining CarbonNOW.
U.S. growers have joined the carbon farming program with a wide range of farm sizes, crops and farming practices. Many evaluated multiple carbon farming programs before choosing CarbonNOW. Scott Scheimer is the owner of Simple Farms, LLC and Scheimer Farms in Cheyenne Wells, Colo. He farms 20,000 acres of corn, wheat, milo, millet and soybeans using a wide variety of regenerative practices, including a range of tillage and cover crops. After evaluating carbon farming programs, he chose CarbonNOW based on eligibility and the added benefits of Locus AG's soil probiotics.
Todd Olander is the owner of Root Shoot Malting and grows a variety of row crops in Loveland, Colo. His farm currently produces around 2.25 million pounds of malt on an annual basis for 175-plus breweries and distilleries across the state of Colorado. Todd was attracted to the CarbonNOW program's generation of premium carbon credits, secure buyers and added value of soil testing.
Father and son team Allen and Paul Schrag have been growing corn, rye, soybeans and wheat for decades on their farm in central Kansas. As they work on a succession plan for Paul to take over in the next few years, they are excited that they can cash in on the regenerative practices they've been using for the past 30 years that have kept them out of other carbon farming programs.
Categories: Ohio, Crops, Sustainable Agriculture