Carbon Trading Provides New Market Opportunities for Agriculture

2007 Annual Report for ENE07-103

Project Type: Professional Development Program
Funds awarded in 2007: $112,927.00
Projected End Date: 12/31/2009
Region: Northeast
State: New York
Project Leader:
Robert Aman
Central New Your Resource Conservation and Development Project, Inc. (CNY RC&D)

Carbon Trading Provides New Market Opportunities for Agriculture

Summary

200 Educators across the Northeast SARE Region will gain knowledge and skills through a regional “Marketing Carbon Credits" informational workshop, which will be linked with 3 sites, DE, PA, NH, to help colleagues and farmers/landowners understand how to market carbon credits.

This project will allow 100 educators from across the Northeast SARE Region to use the knowledge and skills they gain at the regional “Marketing Carbon Credits Workshop” to help colleagues and farmers/landowners understand how to market carbon credits.

Northeast farms are being approached by private companies to sell carbon credits generated by practices such as No-Till and anaerobic digesters. While mitigating greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions is currently voluntary in the United States, carbon-credits are actively being traded on markets including Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX) and Environmental Defense (ED) and others. Currently most farmers/landowners do not understand the complexity of this new, developing market and most educators are not yet prepared to advise them.

The proposed workshops and educational materials will provide educators with information and educational tools for explaining the marketing options of different agricultural practices and compliance requirements as they relate to carbon trading. The educational modules will cover: 1) Basic Cap-and-Trade and Market Opportunities, 2) Northeast Policy Perspectives and Federal 1605(b) Voluntary Reporting, 3) Qualifying Agricultural Practices, 4) Contracts,
5) Whole Farm Planning, and 6) Farms with Experience.

Workshops and manuals will be evaluated by a focus group of experts and an evaluator to verify transfer and application of gained knowledge. A review of the literature shows that while there is ample information available on many of the scientific aspects of carbon sequestration and greenhouse gas emissions reductions, and some information about policy issues, there is very little extension educator material available about how to market carbon credits from the landowner/farmer perspective.

Objectives/Performance Targets

Performance Target:
100 educators from across the Northeast SARE Region will use the knowledge and skills they gained at the "Marketing Carbon Credits" workshop to initiate outreach by one or more of the following: organizing local education sessions, giving presentations, working with individual farmers, answering questions, referring colleagues/farmers/landowners to educational resources.

Accomplishments/Milestones

Milestones:
1,000 extension, NRCS and NGOs and other educators receive announcement of a regional "Marketing Carbon Credit" workshop.

200 educators attend and receive resource manual including fact sheets, PowerPoint presentations and articles in print and on CD-Rom.

100 of these educators share information with 200 colleagues and 300 farmers/landowners by answering questions, copying fact sheets or referring to the website.

50 of these educators will initiate outreach by organizing local educational sessions or give presentations on marketing carbon credits.

Impacts and Contributions/Outcomes

The Marketing Carbon Credits workshop is scheduled for May 20th, Voorheesville, NY. Video link sites are in Greensburg, PA, Georgetown, DE, and Boscawen, NH. PowerPoint presentations are being prepared along with Fact Sheets, which will be part of the Carbon Credit Trading Resource Manual, to be distributed at the 4 sites.

Website development has also been contracted and will begin and be up and running to handle workshop registration and serve as an electronic resource where it will contain the fact sheets, PowerPoint presentations from the workshop, as well as other resource information.