By Karl Plume
CHICAGO (Reuters) – Truterra LLC, the carbon farming and sustainable agriculture unit of Land O’Lakes Inc, paid U.S. farmers $5.1 million in 2022 for capturing and storing 262,000 metric tons of carbon via sustainable practices, the company announced on Wednesday.
The payments to 273 growers enrolled in its carbon program were up from about $4 million paid out in 2021 for sequestering 200,000 tons of carbon, the U.S. farm cooperative said in a release.
The program is among a growing number of offerings from agricultural companies such as Corteva Inc, Bayer AG and Cargill Inc which aim to capitalize on rising demand for environmental credits while making farms more sustainable.
The companies tap satellite and weather data and log sustainable farming practices such as reduced tillage or planting winter cover crops to calculate volumes of greenhouse gasses captured and locked into soils.
They then use the environmental credits created to offset the climate impact of other parts of their businesses or sell them to companies looking to reduce their own carbon footprints.
Microsoft Corp is among the largest buyers of Truterra’s carbon removal credits. Others, such as rival carbon farming program provider Indigo Agriculture, have sold offsets to JPMorgan Chase & Co, Barclays Plc and The North Face.
(Reporting by Karl Plume in Chicago; Editing by Matthew Lewis)
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