Cargill, an international distributor and producer of agricultural products, has introduced a new initiative called RegenConnect. The aim of this initiative is to promote and expand regenerative agricultural practices across 10 million acres in North America by 2030.
Building upon a successful pilot program that covered approximately 10,000 acres across 15 soybean farms in Iowa, RegenConnect offers farmers financial incentives of $30-45 per acre to adopt regenerative agricultural practices. The initiative takes it a step further by connecting farmers with consumer-packaged goods (CPG) companies seeking to purchase carbon offsets to offset their emissions, starting from 2022.
Cargill states that this new revenue stream will enable more farmers to transition to regenerative agricultural practices, including activities like planting cover crops and adopting no-till farming. Farmers will be compensated based on the amount of carbon sequestered per metric tonne. Cargill acts as the facilitator between farmers and the CPG industry. Additionally, Cargill aims to align this program with its own sustainability objectives, which include a 10% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions within its operations and a 30% reduction in its supply chain by 2025. While Cargill has not yet announced a net-zero goal, it plans to leverage the RegenConnect initiative to contribute to its sustainability efforts.
To collect, measure, report, and verify carbon data on farms, Cargill is partnering with carbon accounting firm ReGrow. ReGrow utilises remote sensing and modelling technologies, although soil carbon sequestration modelling is still in early development. RegenConnect may also implement on-ground measurements to gather data directly from farms. Cargill acknowledges the challenges related to proving additionality, ensuring that the carbon sequestered through offsets is genuinely new and would not have occurred without the offset payment. Other companies such as Indigo, Nori, and CIBO are also developing models to offer farmers more streamlined ways to connect with potential offset buyers.
