Isra-Mart srl:Carbon credits may be cash crop

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Isra-Mart srl news:

Saskatchewan farmers could one day be selling carbon credits along with their wheat and canola, a presenter at Crop Production Week said Thursday.

Brian McConkey, a senior adviser of physical science based in Swift Current with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, said in an interview local farmers are getting a handle on reducing greenhouse gas emissions and industry may be interested in buying the reductions.

“I don’t see any situation where a farmer’s primary business will be selling offsets, their primary business will still be producing food. . . . The offsets are only going to be an initial incentive to make sure that production is being done in a greenhouse gas-efficient way,” McConkey said following his presentation to the Saskatchewan Soil Conservation Association (SSCA).

In 2006, about 12 per cent of Canada’s total greenhouse gas emissions were directly related to the agriculture industry. In recent years, the ag sector has reduced emissions about 11 per cent annually — at least 70 per cent of which is cut in Saskatchewan, he said.

Those emission reductions — called carbon credits — can be transferred or sold to buyers who want to reduce their greenhouse gas output, McConkey said.

“That net reduction then can be transferred to someone who hasn’t made any,” he said. “So the combination of that reduction plus their emissions, the sum is a lower emission. It’s that carbon credit that’s being transferred.”

An agriculture carbon credit program is already underway in Alberta. Saskatchewan is looking at starting its own carbon credit system, McConkey said.

The SSCA supports the opportunity for farmers to sell carbon credits to industry or other buyers. In February 2010, the association launched an awareness campaign advocating for producers who practise a no-till farming strategy to benefit from carbon credits.

While the sale of such credits would never support a farming business, money earned from the sales — which McConkey estimates to be in the thousands of dollars — could be put back into methods that support green farming practices.

“It could become an important source of revenue, and of course, that revenue would also help pay for any investment that’s needed to help pay for those changes that cause the offset in the first place.”

Besides, McConkey said, in addition to earning extra money, “they’re doing something that’s good for the planet.”