At Regenerate Outcomes we work with you to make your transition to regenerative food production as efficient, straightforward and profitable as possible.

We run regenerative farming training and online workshops, alongside carbon baselining and monitoring to generate high quality carbon credits with Verra, the world’s leading carbon credit registry.

In the second of our series of insights into the role of carbon in regenerative farming, our Chief Scientific Officer, Dr Matt Jordon, explains the basics of generating carbon credits and unpicks some of the jargon around the subject.

You can also watch Matt’s presentation on the subject in our Confused about Carbon? webinar below.

Why do farmers need to think about carbon?

There are lots of good reasons for farmers to think about carbon, even before we take into account the potential to create extra income through selling carbon credits.

Carbon plays a vital role in building soil structure and providing the basis for microbial activity, which builds soil aggregate, releases nutrients and improves water filtration.

Carbon credits aside, carbon is an important tool for farmers to manage as part of a profitable and resilient farming operation.

Using farming to combat climate change

There are two key ways that farmers can help with climate change. The first is removing carbon from the atmosphere and the second is reducing sources of emissions.

Through practising regenerative agriculture we can really fire up our soil biology and plant activity to store carbon through photosynthesis, sugars and then structural plant compounds. This is the same thing that happens when you plant a tree; you are storing carbon in a stable form using a living thing.

Less use of machinery is one way of cutting carbon emissions

A lot of emissions reductions also come through the transition to regenerative agriculture. If you’re doing fewer field operations and less cultivation, you’re producing less CO2 from machinery.

There are ways we can reduce other greenhouse gasses as well, at the same time as running a more cost-effective business.

For example, increasing the number of calves weaned for cows put to the bull can cut down on methane emissions or we can reduce nitrous oxide emissions by reducing the amount of fertiliser we use.

Win-wins for our bottom line and for the climate are worth considering as we move down the regenerative route.

The carbon cycle and regenerative farming

When we talk about carbon in the soil, it’s worth remembering that it is part of a dynamic cycle.

It can help to think of it as a bank balance. There's a certain amount in the bank and then there's money coming in and out all the time.

What we're trying to do through our regenerative management is to skew the balance to get more carbon into the soil, which fires up our microbiology and helps build up the amount of carbon present.

There are two main pools of carbon within the soil.

The first is bound to minerals and some soils have more binding sites than others. For example, you might hear people talk about how high clay soils can sequester more carbon than others. This is because there are more mineral binding sites on clay and you can stably bind more organic matter to them through microbial activity.

Creating high quality carbon credits from regenerative farming practices — There are two main pools of carbon within the soil.

The second form of carbon in soil is called particulate organic matter, which is semi-decomposed plant residues.

You can get to a point where your mineral associated organic matter can't increase any further. But what's really interesting is that there's a huge amount of scope to increase beyond that with particulate organic matter.

Understanding Ag have been implementing the 6-3-4 regenerative framework across North America for over 30 years and still aren't seeing a plateau in terms of improvements in performance. There's some really powerful evidence to suggest that there is continued potential to keep on storing carbon in the soil in most situations.

Understanding the terminology around carbon credits

Carbon stock:

Your carbon stock is a measure of how much carbon there currently is in your soil and is typically expressed as tonnes of carbon per hectare.

Sequestration:

This refers to the rate of increase of carbon in your soil. This is typically expressed as tonnes of carbon dioxide removed per hectare per year.

You might have a carbon stock of say 60 tonnes per hectare and have a sequestration rate of two tonnes per hectare. So your stock is gaining by two tonnes per year.

Often people think that having high carbon in their soils means they must be sequestering a lot, but the two don't necessarily go together. Your stock reflects geology and your historical management and your sequestration rate will reflect what you're doing now.

Carbon credit:

A carbon credit is one tonne of carbon dioxide removed from the atmosphere. It can also be expressed in terms of emissions avoided. For example, if you're using less red diesel that could then translate into carbon not emitted.

Baseline:

Your baseline is your current status. Your carbon credits are generated as a change from that baseline.

Regenerate Outcomes are going on to farms at the moment measuring their baseline stock, and then we'll be looking to measure the rate of sequestration from that to generate carbon credits.

Measuring soil carbon to generate revenue for farmers

We work with Agricarbon to measure and baseline soil carbon.

We take soil cores from zero to 30 centimetres and then again from 30 to 60 centimetres to capture what's going on across the depth of the soil profile. If the soil is shallow then we will just go as far as we can.

Once those cores have been taken they are analysed for the percentage of carbon, which is the grams of carbon per kilogram of soil, and then the density of the soil, which is measured as grams of soil per centimetre cubed. You multiply these two things together, along with the sample depth, and that gives you your stock.

Measuring carbon to generate agricultural carbon credits in the UK — Taking core samples to measure soil carbon

Typically we'll be looking to resample carbon every five years to detect the degree of change from the baseline. There is rigour involved in every stage to get it right and ensure really high quality data, which can then be used to generate carbon credits.

You can read more about Agricarbon and the process they use in our article with co-founder Annie Leeson.

Verifying carbon credits for farmers

There are a range of things you need to have in place to verify carbon credits.

The first is complete management records and logbooks of how you’re implementing regenerative practices.

Good record keeping is really important to provide evidence of those practices.

Alongside those records, farms who join Regenerate Outcomes are given access to the Soilmentor app, which is a really handy way of taking photos and making notes on your management.

Finally, we’re working with an independent Validation & Verification Body called Aster Global Environmental Solutions who audit the records, the evidence and the measurements.

This provides a high degree of confidence that the claims being made are actually happening and results in a premium price for the carbon credits and more value for our farmers.

Regenerative farming training and soil carbon monitoring

Find out how Regenerate Outcomes can help with your transition to regenerative agriculture through coaching, measuring carbon and generating high quality carbon credits.

Learn more

Understanding carbon: Explaining the carbon market for farmers