This is a “carrot” approach to on farm practice change, will it have a meaningful, measurable impact on emissions.

American cooperative Land O’Lakes’ launch of dedicated sustainability business Truterra is improving on-farm sustainability for farmer members with a carbon credit program delivering an average payment of US$24,842 per participating farmer in 2022. Previously, farmers who wanted to enrol would carry out a soil assessment with a third-party provider, which Truterra would pay for, but recently to streamline the process Truterra is bringing soil testing in house, offering free assessments.

With the assessments, farmers can plan to take up regenerative practices and be rewarded for it though other initiatives further down the line with economic incentives for reduction in tillage and/or addition of cover crops. Truterra’s USDA-backed Climate SMART (Scaling Mechanisms for Agriculture’s Regenerative Transformation) project intends to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by approximately 7.2m metric tons of CO2e over the next five years by engaging 20,000 farmers and dairy producers.