By Jennifer Dorsett
Field Editor
Nutrien recently unveiled a comprehensive carbon program, offering end-to-end support for farmers working to improve sustainability and profitability.
Through the program, Nutrien will help farmers reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, sequester carbon and measure the results on financial, productivity and environmental scales.
“Nutrien is working to solve some of the world’s biggest challenges: producing more food with less land, water and environmental impact. Our new carbon program will empower growers to produce, preserve and profit from sustainable practices,” Chuck Magro, president and CEO of Nutrien, said.
As the world’s largest provider of crop inputs and services, the company is uniquely positioned to implement a carbon improvement program at scale, he noted.
Nutrien plans to work with select farmers to design programs incorporating climate-smart products and sustainable practices that meet each farm’s unique needs. With direct relationships with more than 500,000 farmers, Nutrien said it is poised to pilot the new program across North America in 2021 before expanding to South America and Australia in coming years.
The company says it will help farmers monetize improved carbon performance by facilitating the purchase and sale of carbon credits from farmers to its value-chain partners.
“Over time, our vision is to expand the carbon program to include partnerships across the value chain and into other industries that have interest in the carbon economy. Addressing climate change is critically important, and we believe the best way to move forward is to work together. We are open to the full range of partnership opportunities,” Magro said. “Our aim is to create an ecosystem to help our grower customers benefit from sustainable practices and enable the purchase and sale of their carbon credits, while partnering with governments to help meet public environmental goals.”
An overview of voluntary carbon markets provided by Ecosystem Marketplace shows carbon credit demand has grown substantially since 2017. The global market for carbon offsets is expected to increase by at least fortyfold by 2050, according to the Taskforce on Scaling Voluntary Carbon Markets, with agriculture expected to be a leading participant in the growing market.
“Carbon has the potential to become a substantial economy that will go a long way towards realizing net zero agriculture. Our program is an important first step towards this journey. Our direct relationship with our grower customers will help them to be early movers in this space and see financial value from farming sustainably,” Magro said. “With this new program, we are helping to build an economy and market around sustainability that we believe is truly the next major transformation for the agriculture industry and addresses global issues that affect everyone.”
More information on the program is available on Nutrien’s website.