Growing Returns: Grasslands protocol

Landowners can now generate and sell carbon credits for preserving grasslands and avoiding land conversion.

I want to tell you a story about a handful of growers whose commitment to sustainability and desire to innovate inspired an ag carbon credit movement. Today, the first ever carbon credits generated from rice farmers were sold to Microsoft, all because of a handful of pioneers who tested out a radical idea – that […]

How agriculture can help transition to a low-carbon economy by 2050 while continuing economic growth.

Early adopters of innovative land-based conservation measures are rarely given an adequate reward for participating in agricultural carbon markets. But that’s all about to change, thanks to a nearly $1.2 million USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service Conservation Innovation Grant (CIG) that will leverage private capital investment into agricultural carbon offset practices and ensure that producers […]

One year ago this month the Climate Action Reserve, the premier carbon offset registry for the North American carbon market, approved the voluntary grasslands protocol: a landmark opportunity for ranchers to get paid for keeping their land as grazing lands, versus converting it to crops. And now, the protocol is underway. Today, the Reserve officially listed […]

Rebecca Haynes is a High Meadows Fellow with EDF’s Agriculture Greenhouse Gas Markets program. Next week, hundreds of ranchers, landowners, land trusts, and environmental groups will gather in Stockton, California, for the California Rangeland Conservation Coalition’s annual summit. The event isn’t new, but the enthusiasm from attendees is unprecedented and palpable. Why such a bustle in the grasses? […]

Growers with grasslands on their property have a new reason to leave that land untouched. On July 22, the Climate Action Reserve, a non-profit organization that creates offset standards and serves as one of the offset registries for California’s cap-and-trade program, approved a new protocol that rewards farmers for avoiding the conversion of grasslands to […]