Farmers look to carbon offset for additional income

By Zeta Cross THE CENTER SQUARE

Everyyear,moreIllinois farmers are signing up to participate in carbon capture programs to make some extra income. It has yielded some fruitful results.

John Nergenah is a fourth generation farmer in Morgan County. Along with his father, they have been working with Locus Agricultural Solutions’ CarbonNow program for eight years.

“Weare100%no-tilland we also use cover crops on every acre, every year,” Nergenah said. “The carbonmarketswereanafterthe-fact thing that fit with what we were already doing.”

The CarbonNow program pays the Nergenahs $9 an acre for using best practices. When the company comes back to do soil sampling,Nergenahispaid an additional $3 an acre. There is the potential for bonus dollars if the carbon capture results are better than expected.

Locus Ag translates the data from all the farms in the program into carbon capture credits that are sold to some of the biggest corporations in the world. The corporations buy the creditstooffsettheamount of carbon dioxide that they produce in the course of doing business.

Carbon credits are essentially “permits” that allow the corporations to emitcarbondioxideoroth- er greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere. Because some of the

Nergenahs’ land is sloped, they have always had erosion problems. Thirty years ago, Nergenah’s dad started experimenting with no till soybeans, but planting back in the day was tougher. His dad balked when John let the covercropgrowwaist-high andwhenJohnplantedthe corn right into the cover crop.

“With the planters they make nowadays, you can do it,” he said.

John and his dad finally decidedtogoallinwithnotill and cover crops after a rain event12 years ago.

“The erosion it caused just irritated me,” Nergenah said. “At that point I said, ‘I’m going to figure out how to do this.’”

The father and son pair appreciatesthatno-tilland covercropsaremakingthe soil healthier

“With unhealthy soil, you get all the erosion. The watercyclegetsmessedup. And the nutrient cycle gets messed up. And it all goes down to the rivers and into the Gulf of Mexico,” Negenahsaid.“Anythingwecan do to prevent that, we need to be going at it100%.”

Nergenah also buys Locus Ag probiotics to treat his seed to increase the photosynthesis of the plants.

“They blend that in with aseedlubricantsothebeneficial bacteria goes in with that,” he said.

Thetreatmentmakesthe plants healthier and gives them deeper roots.

“Theplanttakesinmore carbon dioxide than it needs.Itreleasesitthrough the root in a liquid carbon state. That’s how you are takingcarbonoutoftheair and putting it in the ground,” Nergenah said.

Asafarmer,Nergenahis committed to doing the best he can for his land, he said.

“Anything we can do to getmorelandno-tilledand cover cropped is better for everybodyinthelongrun,” Nergenah said.