South Pole and eAgronom partner to incentivise sustainable farming in Europe and Africa

Farmers facing steep costs to switch to low-carbon farming will receive prepayment for future carbon credits

• This will accelerate adoption of sustainable, regenerative farming,whilst producing climate resilient crops, improving food security and promoting biodiversity

Key to reducing emissions lies in introducing climate-smart agriculture. Incentivizing farmers to change their practices – which have served them well for decades – is a major challenge. Therefore, The collaboration will create a new approach to prepaying farmers for high quality Verra certified carbon credits that their projects generate. Allowing them to support immediate climate action in the global race towards net zero. 

Moving towards sustainable agriculture typically requires a sizeable upfront investment, a change in the agriculture production system, and a higher level of risk. These are all major barriers for many farmers who wish to switch to low carbon farming. Access to financing and agronomical support is key to making this transition happen. 

eAgronom’s novel carbon programme introduces the concept of prepaying for carbon credits today that a project will generate tomorrow. Under today’s leading carbon credit standards, it can take years to receive payments for the carbon credits that climate-smart projects generate, a repayment period that is too long for most farmers. eAgronom’s carbon credit pre-payment mechanism removes this entry barrier and allows farmers to join the efforts towards net zero today whilst feeding the world and protecting critical habitats. 

Robin Saluoks, CEO of eAgronom, said: “Agriculture has a huge part to play in ensuring our future survival on planet Earth. eAgronom’s mission is to fight climate change by bringing economic benefits to sustainable farmers through the creation of the highest quality carbon credits for the voluntary carbon market. Being able to offer farmers a complete solution from financing, consultancy, implementation, accreditation, measurement and verification means every farmer will be a climate smart farmer in the not so distant future.”  

Renat Heuberger, CEO of South Pole, said: “Carbon credits from climate smart agricultural projects provide not only a reduction of emissions but also many social and environmental benefits, which are key at a time when our food system is facing unprecedented challenges. We look forward to spearheading a program that drives funds from the voluntary carbon market to hundreds of farmers. These offsets also get the private sector to take climate action today, while they are working on their long term decarbonisation strategies.” 

The program will generate verifiable, transparent and robust carbon credits for which farmers can be prepaid in order to support the adoption of sustainable practices such as cover cropping and reducing tillage. In this partnership, South Pole will manage the credit certification, buyer engagement and sales by leveraging its industry-leading market position and local presence in 34 locations globally, while eAgronom focuses on farmer engagement, technology and farmer support. 

eAgronom is the only Central and Eastern European organisation to commence a project pursuing certification by the prestigious Verified Carbon Standard Verra and is already pre-paying farmers for the generated carbon credits. The project thus far includes 130 farms with nearly 100,000ha of cropland that is expected to generate annual carbon benefits of between 0.5 – 1.5 t CO2-e per ha through an increase in soil organic carbon, while reducing emissions (N2O; CO2, CH4) and input costs related to fertilisers and fossil fuel use. 

Andrzej Nowak Farm in Opolskie Voivodeship, Poland said: “Soil is our livelihood. It is also home to millions of organisms and has the power to remove carbon from the atmosphere. We feel the weight of responsibility on us to do our utmost to protect our soil, make it resilient to the changing climate, produce food for communities and promote a biodiverse environment. Being part of eAgronom’s carbon programme and being pre-paid for carbon credits has allowed us to embrace regenerative farming in a way that would not have been possible otherwise.” 

Access to carbon finance is not only beneficial to farmers and the agricultural sector and helps the uptake and acceleration of low carbon farming practices in an industry that is responsible for 17 % of global carbon emissions. High quality carbon credits are also a powerful tool for companies to take action and ownership of their unavoidable emissions today, while they are working on a science-led decarbonisation journey towards net zero. By purchasing carbon credits, a company is putting a price on their carbon footprint. This makes carbon credits an effective decision making tool for financing and accelerating climate action.