This week Bayer launched a new carbon initiative for farmers. It will reward them for adopting certain carbon smart farming practices that will help generate additional revenue sources for farmers. It makes Bayer the first company to develop a transparent, science-based and collaborative approach to a carbon market in agriculture.
“For one, we all know that growers are good stewards of their land and astute businessmen as well, which is really why this announcement is so exciting,” says Chad Bilby at Bayer Crop Science. “This initiative creates a financial incentive for growers to adopt some new or even additional climate-smart farming practices. And, by making some of these climate smart changes to their operations, growers can then add a revenue stream that also benefits their operations long-term.”
Bilby says there are several ways farmers can participate.
“Adding cover crops, or moving to no-till, are just some examples of actions that growers could take to participate in this particular initiative. This announcement is the result of a lot of years of work. Bayer developed this initiative to deliver a science-based approach and methodology, really aimed reward growers for the amount of carbon sequestered, or in other words, the amount of carbon reduced over the course of a year.”
Bilby says this initiative offers many benefits beyond financial incentives.
t “We look forward to working with farmers to help them adopt and even implement some of these climate-smart agricultural practices that enable them to be rewarded for the practices that they implement. But, beyond financial incentives, these carbon-smart practices can also benefit grower operations in many ways. For example, these practices can improve soil quality, which has the ability to improve yield, profitability and sustainability in the future. And we believe the initiative really creates a “win, win, win” scenario. Because it’s good for farmers and their business, it’s good for the environment and the farmers land and it’s good for Bayer and the continued effort that we’re doing around sustainability.”
Bilby, North America Commercial Innovation Experimentation Lead at Bayer Crop Science, says the initiative is just one example of how Bayer is working to create new opportunities for farmers.
“In both good and tough times, and look, we’ve certainly seen both of those, Bayer is continually looking for ways to create new opportunities to benefit growers, and helping them make their operations more sustainable from both a financial and environmental perspective. We’re really thrilled we can offer this new initiative which we believe can deliver on both and look forward to working with growers on this new initiative in the very near future.”
Learn more online at Bayer.com/sustainability.