Speaker 1: Hi, this is Dana Perkins and you're listening to Switch
Speaker 1: It on the b n F podcast. Today's show is
Speaker 1: about agriculture carbon offsets. This is currently a very small
Speaker 1: part of the voluntary offsets market, but hang in with
Speaker 1: me here there is potential for growth and importantly innovation
Speaker 1: which could lead to changes to our agricultural food system
Speaker 1: that at scale could really have a meaningful impact. Direct
Speaker 1: emissions from the agriculture sector currently make up roughly eleven
Speaker 1: percent of global totals, with soil management and livestock related
Speaker 1: activities as the biggest parts. When thinking about solutions, it's
Speaker 1: going to be the farmers and their farming practices that
Speaker 1: will reduce emissions. So offsets give them a market and
Speaker 1: a bit of inspiration to spur this innovation. Today I
Speaker 1: get to speak with Kyle Harrison, who leads our sustainability
Speaker 1: research team at BENF and he spends a lot of
Speaker 1: time looking at carbon offsets of all kinds. As a
Speaker 1: quick reminder, b ANF does not provide investment or strategy advice,
Speaker 1: and we have a complete disclaimer at the end of
Speaker 1: the show. And now let's jump into our conversation with
Speaker 1: Kyle about agriculture carbon offsets. Kyle, thanks for coming on
Speaker 1: back to the show. Thanks for having me so our
Speaker 1: favorite topic that you and I discuss when we're on here,
Speaker 1: which is the wonderful world of offsets, And this time
Speaker 1: we're going to be talking about agriculture offsets. And so actually,
Speaker 1: let's just definitionally, Well, that's a mouthful jump right in.
Speaker 1: Can you explain what an agriculture specific offset actually is? Sure?
Speaker 1: And I think maybe taking one step back even further, right,
Speaker 1: when we talk about a carbon offset, we think about
Speaker 1: a verified emission reduction certificate or credit that can be
Speaker 1: bought and sold by various parties. So a corporation can
Speaker 1: buy one of these offsets and retire it or cancel
Speaker 1: it from the market, and then they can neutralize their
Speaker 1: own hard to abate emissions. And generally, when we talk
Speaker 1: about carbon offsets, we're looking at a couple of specific sectors,
Speaker 1: and these are the ones that get most of the love. Right,
Speaker 1: it's energy generation projects like clean energy, it's avoided deforestation
Speaker 1: and reforestation, and then there's all the other sectors like
Speaker 1: clean cookstoves for example. But when we talk about agriculture
Speaker 1: carbon offsets, we're thinking about avoiding or removing emissions from
Speaker 1: any sustainable practice in agriculture. So that can be something
Speaker 1: like more sustainable management of manure or feeding livestock different
Speaker 1: food so that their digestion process changes and they emit
Speaker 1: less methane. But it could also be the way that
Speaker 1: we change the water usage, for example, for rice cultivation.
Speaker 1: So there's a whole slew of potential subsectors within agriculture
Speaker 1: that can avoid or remove emissions and as a result,
Speaker 1: they can create these carbon offsets that can be bought
Speaker 1: by companies. And to further frame this, how much of
Speaker 1: direct emissions are actually coming from the agricultural sector now,
Speaker 1: So there's a lot of different estimates on this, and
Speaker 1: it depends on what subsectors you include, but generally you're
Speaker 1: looking at a range of around eleven to of global
Speaker 1: greenhouse gas emissions coming from agriculture, and so there's a
Speaker 1: huge role to play here by again employing sustainable practices
Speaker 1: to reduce those emissions. And we've talked about offsets here
Speaker 1: in the past, so if people want to go back
Speaker 1: to even more definitions the things that Kyle just let
Speaker 1: us into, you know what this voluntary offset space really is,
Speaker 1: how big is this agriculture offset space that we're going
Speaker 1: to talk about today in terms of the market, Is
Speaker 1: this an innovation or is this a big part of
Speaker 1: the voluntary offset market. It's essentially non existent or tiny today.
Speaker 1: And there there is an asterisk to that which i'll
Speaker 1: which i'll go into a little bit more. But when
Speaker 1: we talk about the offset markets today and we think
Speaker 1: about supply of carbon offsets, you're looking at between two
Speaker 1: and three hundred million carbon offsets being issued on on
Speaker 1: an annual basis. The record in terms of carbonof set
Speaker 1: issuance in the agriculture space to date was one point
Speaker 1: five million carbon offsets in twenty seventeen. That supply has
Speaker 1: actually dropped year on near since, so a very very
Speaker 1: tiny percent of the market on registry comes from agriculture today. However,
Speaker 1: there is this important part of the agriculture offs at
Speaker 1: market that makes it quite unique, and that is the
Speaker 1: fact that there is a thriving what we call off
Speaker 1: registry ecosystem. And so what that means is that when
Speaker 1: you buy a carbon offset today, a lot of projects
Speaker 1: are listed on a registry. The biggest ones are VERA,
Speaker 1: there's ones like gold Standard, and then the American Carbon Registry,
Speaker 1: for example, and there can be quite expensive fees for
Speaker 1: listing those projects on registry. So what you see in
Speaker 1: the agriculture spaces a lot of small farmers that are
Speaker 1: adopting sustainable agriculture practices, they'll sell their offsets on marketplaces
Speaker 1: that are off registry. So for example, they'll go through
Speaker 1: companies like Nori where they bypass that fee for listing
Speaker 1: their project and then they can sell those offsets directly
Speaker 1: to customers offer registry. So it's a little bit difficult
Speaker 1: to say just how big the overall market is. But
Speaker 1: with the data that we do have, the data that
Speaker 1: we can analyze is that on registry market and right
Speaker 1: now it is absolutely tiny, but we don't think it
Speaker 1: will be that way for long. And there's a number
Speaker 1: of different reasons for that. Well, and the reason I
Speaker 1: asked you to come on today isn't because this is
Speaker 1: a huge space that you know is unavoidable. It's more
Speaker 1: that this is part of the solution finding space within agriculture,
Speaker 1: which is complicated, super fragmented, and we at b NF
Speaker 1: do really like to think about, well, what are the
Speaker 1: potential solutions and what could scale. So you mentioned the
Speaker 1: off registry offset space being potentially really appealing to some
Speaker 1: of the smaller farmers out there. I guess then that
Speaker 1: makes a question what's in it for them? What's in
Speaker 1: it for a farmer to even be an on registry
Speaker 1: listing for an offset, and how lucrative is this for them.
Speaker 1: There's a few different ways to think about this, and
Speaker 1: one of them is kind of the classic corporate sustainability strategy, right,
Speaker 1: which is by adopting sustainable practices in a lot of cases,
Speaker 1: you're saving on resources. So maybe we can use that
Speaker 1: example of rice cultivation. Like I mentioned before, when someone
Speaker 1: cultivates rice or grows rice, typically they do that in
Speaker 1: a rice patty, and what they do is that they
Speaker 1: drown that patty and water in order to go ahead
Speaker 1: and produce that rice. For starters, that's using a ton
Speaker 1: of water resources, right, and that water needs to be
Speaker 1: pumped and transported from point A to point B. At
Speaker 1: the same time, though, what you're actually doing is you're
Speaker 1: drowning the crop and you're actually drowning the soil. And
Speaker 1: what that does is it creates special bacteria that emits
Speaker 1: things like methane and nitrous oxide. One of the ways
Speaker 1: that you can go ahead and mitigate some of these emissions,
Speaker 1: um is just by simply reducing your water usage, so
Speaker 1: using water much more strategically on rice patties. So again
Speaker 1: you're reducing your emissions because you're not drowning out those
Speaker 1: patties in the same way that you would, but you're
Speaker 1: also reducing your usage of water, right, So that saves
Speaker 1: a farmer purely from a natural resource standpoint, quite a
Speaker 1: bit of money. So there's that one angle to it.
Speaker 1: The other one, which we thought about a little bit
Speaker 1: when we were trying to estimate the long term cost
Speaker 1: of carbon offsets from this space is the opportunity to
Speaker 1: produce sustainable agriculture produced sustainable food and crops. So foods
Speaker 1: with an organic label, for example, typically sell for quite
Speaker 1: a large premium compared to traditional methods, so farmers as results,
Speaker 1: they can go ahead and sell their food for more
Speaker 1: and long term that can lead to a more revenue
Speaker 1: for a farmer. So there are definitely benefits to the farmer.
Speaker 1: Presumably there's innovation here and there are certain things that
Speaker 1: they need to do in order to be able to
Speaker 1: qualify for these on registry ones. But actually before we
Speaker 1: even get into that the off registry ones. There's this
Speaker 1: whole verification process that we have discussed in the past
Speaker 1: in other shows, and there's is kind of somewhat dubious
Speaker 1: world of non certified voluntary offsets and whether or not
Speaker 1: we can take them seriously and whether or not we
Speaker 1: can actually see those as additional Do you think that
Speaker 1: there's a risk for the off registry listings to potentially
Speaker 1: be something that people could exploit and you know, don't
Speaker 1: end up giving the benefit to the companies that are
Speaker 1: actually buying these offsets. It's a complicated topic, but I
Speaker 1: think it's absolutely something that any stakeholder in the sector
Speaker 1: should be asking themselves. When you think about the role
Speaker 1: of a registry, what it should be doing is it
Speaker 1: should be that kind of first line of defense in
Speaker 1: verifying the quality of a project. They should have that
Speaker 1: methodology laid out on the registry to go ahead and
Speaker 1: work with an independent third party to verify that a
Speaker 1: project actually is avoiding or removing emissions. But the issue is,
Speaker 1: and what we've seen even on Registry over the past
Speaker 1: few months and years, is that there's quite a few
Speaker 1: projects that do make that on registry cut that aren't
Speaker 1: considered high quality. So what you're seeing is is almost
Speaker 1: this eroding level of faith in the registries and the
Speaker 1: role that they're going to play in this market personally,
Speaker 1: and I think overall these registries will play an important role,
Speaker 1: and they are working with other third party groups to
Speaker 1: further verify quality. So there's a group that we've definitely
Speaker 1: mentioned previously on this podcast data it's called the Integrity
Speaker 1: Council on Voluntary Carbon Markets. They're creating what are called
Speaker 1: their Core Carbon Principles, and that is a set of
Speaker 1: thresholds that a project needs to meet to be considered
Speaker 1: high quality. And while that technically is separate from the
Speaker 1: work that the registries are doing, there was quite a
Speaker 1: bit of collaboration between those two parties, and the registries
Speaker 1: are actually intimately involved when the work that the Integrity
Speaker 1: Council is doing. So I do think that overall, moving forward,
Speaker 1: registries will play in very important part in this market.
Speaker 1: And so if you are operating off registry, you are
Speaker 1: kind of betting against the overall momentum of the market here. However,
Speaker 1: I do go back to the at financial issue that
Speaker 1: I talked about earlier. It's very expensive for a small
Speaker 1: farmer to go ahead and pay the fee to list
Speaker 1: a project on one of these registries. A lot of
Speaker 1: these farmers already operated at a loss, regardless of whether
Speaker 1: or not they're using sustainable practices or they're creating offsets.
Speaker 1: So if you remove that financial incentive or you give
Speaker 1: this huge financial fee, that's going to remove any incentive
Speaker 1: that a farmer would have to generate carbon offsets. And
Speaker 1: a lot of this supply that we would see in
Speaker 1: the market over the coming decades that we're very bullish
Speaker 1: on at b an EF that's going to evaporate. Right.
Speaker 1: So what this does, this off registry market is it
Speaker 1: does in many ways empower the small farmer and it
Speaker 1: gives them that option to monetize or create new revenue
Speaker 1: streams by adopting more sustainable practices. So it's it's a
Speaker 1: tough one. I know it didn't give you the perfect
Speaker 1: answer here, but I do think that there are some
Speaker 1: major risks with operating off registry. However, I do think
Speaker 1: that there's some you know, really important positives to that
Speaker 1: side of the market as well. So you just reference
Speaker 1: the farmers that are operating at a loss, and I
Speaker 1: know this is a space that you know, because food
Speaker 1: is so important to human beings, right, this is a
Speaker 1: space where policymakers have gotten very involved in who's producing
Speaker 1: and who receives subsidies to in some circumstances not produced.
Speaker 1: Are there countries and policy makers and governments that are
Speaker 1: looking at this offset space as a potential opportunity for them,
Speaker 1: not just in terms of driving down the emissions for
Speaker 1: maybe they're stated at zero goals as a country, but
Speaker 1: also as a way to potentially create other revenue streams
Speaker 1: for the farming sector. Absolutely will be found is that
Speaker 1: there's twenty seven countries now that have a specific carve
Speaker 1: out for soil in their nationally determined contribution, so that's
Speaker 1: their paras aligned climate goal. They are specifically going to
Speaker 1: be looking at abatement from soil carbon, so actually, you know,
Speaker 1: strengthening soil and using soil to further store carbon. There
Speaker 1: are a lot of count trees that are prioritizing this. However,
Speaker 1: I think as you think about it in terms of
Speaker 1: the offset market, there's definitely a way that you can
Speaker 1: think about this as potentially adversarial, right, and so what
Speaker 1: I mean by that is in general, when you think
Speaker 1: about the total amount of abatement that can come from
Speaker 1: soil carbon and from sustainable agriculture practices in general. Theoretically,
Speaker 1: each ton of that abatement should only be used for
Speaker 1: one thing. Right It's either used for abatement by a
Speaker 1: country to reach their nationally determined contribution, or it's being
Speaker 1: exported as a carbon offset, either to a company within
Speaker 1: that same country or two companies elsewhere in the world. Right. So,
Speaker 1: one of the challenges and one of the kind of
Speaker 1: exercises that we did when we did this long term outlook,
Speaker 1: as we said, well, let's look at the countries that
Speaker 1: are also prioritizing soil carbon in their climate goals, and
Speaker 1: let's see if they met a small portion of their
Speaker 1: nationally determined contribution with soil carbon, how much of the
Speaker 1: offset supply in the market would that into. And so
Speaker 1: we took an eleven percent figure, which is kind of
Speaker 1: goes back to what I mentioned earlier about how around
Speaker 1: eleven or a little bit more of global greenhouse gas
Speaker 1: emissions come from agriculture, and we assume that eleven percent
Speaker 1: of that country's emissions are met with abatement from agriculture,
Speaker 1: and what that potentially does is it wipes carbon offsets
Speaker 1: supply from some major agriculture companies entirely off the map.
Speaker 1: So what that means is that they no longer have
Speaker 1: any supply to export two companies elsewhere in the world,
Speaker 1: and they're using all of that supply for their own
Speaker 1: domestic abatement goal. And this is something that I think policymakers,
Speaker 1: but also anyone that's buying carbon offsets, traders, suppliers of
Speaker 1: carbon offsets, they all need to start thinking about this.
Speaker 1: And increasingly we're starting to see this from countries around
Speaker 1: the world. So India recently went ahead and they announced
Speaker 1: that they will not export any carbon offsets until they
Speaker 1: use the necessary abatement to meet their own climate targets.
Speaker 1: If you start to get major other agriculture societies, so
Speaker 1: I'm thinking about countries like the United States, like China,
Speaker 1: like Brazil, if they start to make similar types of pledges,
Speaker 1: that's going to eat into carbon offsets supply significantly. So
Speaker 1: as a buyer of a carbon offset, a lot of
Speaker 1: that potential supply that I would be tapping into in
Speaker 1: this market is going to evaporate, and I need to
Speaker 1: think of alternative routes to market as a result. That
Speaker 1: is a really interesting perspective in making sure that we're
Speaker 1: not double counting. So you mentioned the countries that are
Speaker 1: looking at this most kind of actively right now. How
Speaker 1: about companies. Is it the usual players in the agricultural
Speaker 1: supply chain or is it other companies looking at, you know,
Speaker 1: creative ways to offset their business activities. I think there's
Speaker 1: two points of the agriculture offset value chain that are
Speaker 1: worth highlighting here. And when we talk about any sector
Speaker 1: in carbon offsets, whether it is energy generation or forestry
Speaker 1: or cookstoves or agriculture, you do have kind of three
Speaker 1: main players that are involved in the space or ford
Speaker 1: depending on how you look at it. You have your developers,
Speaker 1: so you have the companies that are creating the carbon
Speaker 1: offset projects. You have the registries that these projects are
Speaker 1: getting listed on. Typically, then you have a broker, so
Speaker 1: typically a company that is an independent third party consultant
Speaker 1: that will either just advise a buyer on how they
Speaker 1: should purchase offsets or they'll actually be the one buying
Speaker 1: the offsets and then selling those onto a customer somewhere
Speaker 1: along the value chain. So brokers play very important role here.
Speaker 1: And then of course you have the buyers. What makes
Speaker 1: the agriculture offset value chain. Very unique is you also
Speaker 1: have a number of what we call aggregators that operate
Speaker 1: in this market. So I mentioned before the opportunities in
Speaker 1: this sector to empower the small farmer, to get them
Speaker 1: to start adopting sustainable practices and monetizing carbon offsets as
Speaker 1: a way to finance those activities. What you have in
Speaker 1: a lot of cases is companies playing the role of
Speaker 1: what we call an aggregator. And typically these are large
Speaker 1: agriculture companies like Kellogg for example, like Cargill, like General Mills.
Speaker 1: What they'll do is they'll work actually with small farmers,
Speaker 1: and as the name would imply, they will aggregate a
Speaker 1: bunch of carbon op set supply from those small farmers.
Speaker 1: They'll pay the fees, they'll handle all the technical aspects
Speaker 1: of developing that project, and then they'll actually be the
Speaker 1: ones to take ownership of those offsets in exchange for
Speaker 1: a small fee of the farmer. So a lot of
Speaker 1: the risks that would come with developing this project, both
Speaker 1: physically and financially, the small farmer no longer has to
Speaker 1: bear those The aggregator takes that type of responsibility. So
Speaker 1: I think that's a really unique kind of corporate player
Speaker 1: in the offset value chain. That's important to note. But
Speaker 1: then danta to your original question. In terms of buyers,
Speaker 1: it's a whole slew of buyers right, ranging from technology
Speaker 1: companies like Microsoft, two banks like Barclays and JP Morgan,
Speaker 1: all the way to e commerce companies like Shopify for example.
Speaker 1: There's a whole range of these companies that are getting
Speaker 1: very active in this space. And in general, we think
Speaker 1: the value of an agriculture offset, and we can definitely
Speaker 1: go into more detail on this mean is that it's
Speaker 1: going to be very desirable as a supply source for
Speaker 1: any type of corporate fire for ones that want to
Speaker 1: emphasize quality especially, they're all going to be looking towards
Speaker 1: agriculture offsets as a source of supply now for a
Speaker 1: very short break stay with us. So, of course there's
Speaker 1: the quality of the offset that the companies are looking at,
Speaker 1: but then there's price. So are these price competitive within
Speaker 1: the range of other voluntary carbon offsets. So in terms
Speaker 1: of how we actually went ahead and tried to estimate cost,
Speaker 1: I got into this a little bit earlier, but what
Speaker 1: we tried to think about is what is the premium
Speaker 1: that a form would be selling, for example, an organic
Speaker 1: product for compared to a regular version of that product,
Speaker 1: and can of carbon offset finance the gap in producing
Speaker 1: that organic product because again, in a lot of cases,
Speaker 1: it involves changing the way that you're producing these crops,
Speaker 1: and a lot of cases it involves an upfront cost.
Speaker 1: So what we said is can you use an office
Speaker 1: to finance those activities and in turn sell you know,
Speaker 1: higher quality food at a higher price or a premium.
Speaker 1: And in general, what we found as a result of
Speaker 1: that is that you have a huge range in terms
Speaker 1: of costs of these carbon offsets depending on the market
Speaker 1: that you operate in, but also depending on the type
Speaker 1: of crop that you're producing. And so what we found
Speaker 1: is that there's a slew of projects that can sell
Speaker 1: carbon offsets in the agriculture space for less than five
Speaker 1: dollars a ton. And there's some major agriculture countries that
Speaker 1: fall into this category. That is inexpensive, is it not,
Speaker 1: that's very inexpensive, that's too cheap. So, for example, there's
Speaker 1: countries like India and Canada and Kazakhstan that do have
Speaker 1: quite large agriculture industries that can sell a carbon ops
Speaker 1: that we estimate in from agriculture for less than five
Speaker 1: dollars ton. However, this is quite a steep supply curve
Speaker 1: and there are a number of countries that would be
Speaker 1: selling these agriculture opsets for a lot more expensive in
Speaker 1: the price. So we estimate that the US would be
Speaker 1: selling it around twenty two a ton, Brazil let around
Speaker 1: thirty dollars a ton, all the way up to Australia
Speaker 1: at around sixty dollars a ton. And again, what this
Speaker 1: comes down to is what is the major crop that
Speaker 1: these countries are producing, and then what is the premium
Speaker 1: that it would take for them to sell or the
Speaker 1: premium that they would charge to sell an organic version
Speaker 1: of that crop. Right, So, if you think about a
Speaker 1: market like Australia, for example, a lot of their agriculture
Speaker 1: industry is focused on beef production, so selling organic beef
Speaker 1: often goes for much higher a premium compared to traditional beef.
Speaker 1: But the practices that need to go into producing that,
Speaker 1: like feed additives, more sustainable livestock management, all that costs
Speaker 1: money upfront, right, and so the gap that you would need,
Speaker 1: the price that you need to sell those offsets at
Speaker 1: to bridge the gap between those two practices is a
Speaker 1: lot higher. In general, I think this does kind of
Speaker 1: match what we've seen with other offset sectors. If you
Speaker 1: look at other nature based solution like reforestation and avoidant deforestation,
Speaker 1: for example, we use a different methodology to estimate cost,
Speaker 1: So in those cases we look primarily at what we
Speaker 1: call opportunity cost, So how would that land be used
Speaker 1: otherwise if it wasn't for protecting those trees? And what
Speaker 1: we found with that exercise and analysis is that you
Speaker 1: also have a huge range in costs. So there's a
Speaker 1: lot of countries that can sell reforestation offsets for less
Speaker 1: than five dollars a ton, and then again there's countries
Speaker 1: like Australia that are selling them at much higher prices
Speaker 1: that over a hundred dollars a ton. So I think,
Speaker 1: in general, what we've seen with other sectors, and you know,
Speaker 1: if anything, it's actually kind of a middle ground. You
Speaker 1: don't have the highs of other sectors and the lows.
Speaker 1: You know, while they are similar, they might not be
Speaker 1: quite as pronounced. I mean, they seem to be cost
Speaker 1: competitive with the compliance markets like the EU E t
Speaker 1: S here in Europe. Long term, I think yes, right now,
Speaker 1: and this is a you know, We've talked about this before.
Speaker 1: This is an ongoing challenge with the voluntary market is
Speaker 1: that carbon offsets are are far too cheap right now.
Speaker 1: If you look at the e U e T s,
Speaker 1: right the cost of carbon to the price of carbon
Speaker 1: is covering in some cases at some periods around hundred
Speaker 1: euros a ton, and then you compare that to the
Speaker 1: voluntary space, it's far too cheap for an offset today.
Speaker 1: And what that means is that it doesn't incentivize any
Speaker 1: change within an actual company. So what that means is
Speaker 1: that they'll use carbon offsets is a blanket or band
Speaker 1: aid solution to achieving a net zero carbon neutral goal.
Speaker 1: They won't actually try to change their practices internally. And
Speaker 1: so what you need to see is there's more of
Speaker 1: those higher costs in order to incentivize change. Yeah, the
Speaker 1: higher costs than driving adoption of best available technologies. But
Speaker 1: then here within the agriculture space, if I had to
Speaker 1: really summarize it, what you're saying to me is what
Speaker 1: you're essentially doing when you're buying an agriculture focused offset
Speaker 1: is your funding innovation and it's about bridging that gap.
Speaker 1: As you were saying in the agricultural practices today, but
Speaker 1: essentially trying to drive down costs maybe for different innovations
Speaker 1: in the long term. Now, I know some of these
Speaker 1: are not innovations. Some of these are just as you
Speaker 1: were mentioning organic farming. These are practices and there are
Speaker 1: associated rules with it. But what are some of the
Speaker 1: other innovations that maybe will be less expensive and scalable
Speaker 1: in the longer run. That's a great question. You're absolutely
Speaker 1: right when you think about an offset for some of
Speaker 1: these more nasson sectors. An offset is your financing vehicle, right.
Speaker 1: It's the same thing with something like direct air capture.
Speaker 1: It's the same when it comes to nasson sectors like
Speaker 1: blue carbon so help or allergae based sequestration. Your offset
Speaker 1: is your way that you get financing, similar to a
Speaker 1: power purchase agreement for clean energy for example. So our
Speaker 1: tech and innovation team has done some really good work
Speaker 1: at looking specifically at innovation in the agriculture sector, and
Speaker 1: what they've found specifically is that precision farming startups so
Speaker 1: companies that use data to for example, improve a farm
Speaker 1: efficiency but also crop yield. These companies have raised over
Speaker 1: a billion dollars in terms of funding from BC private
Speaker 1: equity firms over the past couple of years. So they'll
Speaker 1: use things, for example, like sensors and software to better
Speaker 1: measure carbon sequestration within soil. But then they'll also use
Speaker 1: that data to adopt again and improve the efficiency of
Speaker 1: farmland to improve yields. So there's a lot of exciting
Speaker 1: work happening there. For example, I briefly mentioned this before,
Speaker 1: but there's also areas like feed additives. So a huge
Speaker 1: chunk of carbon emissions from the agriculture space today come
Speaker 1: from a process that we call enteric fermentation. I'm not
Speaker 1: going to go into the weeds of what that means,
Speaker 1: but effectively, when a cow or various cattle digests the
Speaker 1: food that they eat, it produces methane and an example
Speaker 1: in the United States and terek fermentation makes up roughly
Speaker 1: around of emissions that come from the agriculture space a lot. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a huge part of this. So live stock and
Speaker 1: you know, even the manure that comes from livestock is
Speaker 1: a huge part of the emissions here, and that's a
Speaker 1: huge opportunity of course for carbon offset creation. So there's
Speaker 1: a lot of investment also going into areas like feed additives,
Speaker 1: So can we feed cattle more sustainable foods that limits
Speaker 1: the climate impact of that enteric fermentation process. So there's
Speaker 1: a lot of really cool investment going into areas like
Speaker 1: that as well. So yes, there's no slew of really
Speaker 1: cool and exciting technologies on the horizon. The carbon off
Speaker 1: sets can fund to further improve again crop yields, but
Speaker 1: also emission reductions. So you talked about, I guess a
Speaker 1: number of different applications. So we've been here with an
Speaker 1: enteric fermentation Okay that that didn't quite roll off my tongue,
Speaker 1: but essentially dealing with the methane that comes from cows.
Speaker 1: You have talked about rice patties and what we do
Speaker 1: about water use and then associated emissions with that. You've
Speaker 1: talked about different fertilizer practices. If you had to kind
Speaker 1: of quickly summarize them, what are the different areas that
Speaker 1: these offsets are looking to target within agriculture. Well, we
Speaker 1: did a long term outlook. We specifically looked at seven
Speaker 1: major areas in terms of abatement potential and maybe just
Speaker 1: kind of going down the list in terms of the
Speaker 1: largest areas for abatement. All of this goes back to
Speaker 1: the soil, right, So the soil is actually where most
Speaker 1: of the carbon sequestration happens on a farm. So for example,
Speaker 1: if you are tearing up crops, or you have livestock
Speaker 1: walking through crop lands, or you have various physical climate
Speaker 1: related impacts like storms or flooding, all of that disrupts
Speaker 1: the structure of the soil. And what that means is
Speaker 1: it not only releases carbon dioxide and other emissions, it
Speaker 1: also weakens the future potential for that soil to go
Speaker 1: ahead and store carbon and other greenhouse gas emissions. So
Speaker 1: a lot of the potential abatement goes into strengthening soil.
Speaker 1: And so there's a couple of areas where you can
Speaker 1: think about this. One of them, for example, is planting
Speaker 1: trees and agriculture lands. So what that does is it
Speaker 1: further builds up the amount of roots underground that can
Speaker 1: store oil. But it also prevents runoff. So trees will
Speaker 1: block a lot of the for example, fertilizer runoff, but
Speaker 1: a lot of just natural water runoff when it comes
Speaker 1: to flooding for example. There's also, like I mentioned before,
Speaker 1: improved rice cultivation, so using practices that use less water
Speaker 1: and don't actually drown the rice patties with water. There's
Speaker 1: things like avoided grassland conversion. There's things like what'll we
Speaker 1: call grazing lagoons, so that means planting certain crops on
Speaker 1: the soil that have the sole intention of strengthening the
Speaker 1: roots underground within the soil. And then there's also things
Speaker 1: like nutrient management. All of these we think can play
Speaker 1: a huge role in terms of the abatement potential when
Speaker 1: it comes to agriculture and as a whole. There's a
Speaker 1: number of third party sources that estimate that in total,
Speaker 1: these practices can lead to around between four to five
Speaker 1: gigatons of potential carbon ambatement on an annual basis. So
Speaker 1: there's a lot of really exciting opportunity here. So when
Speaker 1: I'm thinking about the different offsets that could potentially be
Speaker 1: taking place in the agriculture, I'm thinking of, Okay, there's
Speaker 1: the emissions that maybe the methane emissions that maybe aren't
Speaker 1: coming from the cows because of different additives given to
Speaker 1: the cow to begin with. So, you know, put very
Speaker 1: similarly in the energy sector, which we know very well
Speaker 1: at B and F. You know, it's kind of the
Speaker 1: renewable energy versus the coal fired power station. But then
Speaker 1: I think about a lot of the stuff I've been
Speaker 1: looking at lately talks about potentially, you know, burying different
Speaker 1: captured carbon underground, and then I also think about all
Speaker 1: of the stored carbon. So even then, I was reading
Speaker 1: something the other day about how big whales are and
Speaker 1: actually how they fall to the bottom of the ocean
Speaker 1: after they die and essentially become a form of carbon sequestration.
Speaker 1: Are there technologies and are there ways were essentially the
Speaker 1: carbon coming from some of these projects is actually keeping
Speaker 1: it in the ground or is it then just coming
Speaker 1: out with plants that we then eat and going through
Speaker 1: the cycle. I think you get at a really important
Speaker 1: point when you think about agriculture offsets, And like I
Speaker 1: mentioned again, pretty much all of this comes down to
Speaker 1: the strength of the soil, right and the sequestration of
Speaker 1: carbon that occurs in the soil itself. So when you
Speaker 1: you know, for example, when you have a growing season,
Speaker 1: but then you're you know, taking all these crops out
Speaker 1: of the ground, a lot of that carbon does get
Speaker 1: released into the atmosphere. But what it also does is
Speaker 1: it weakens the overall integrity of the soil underneath. It,
Speaker 1: and it means that in future kind of crop yields,
Speaker 1: it's not storing as much carbon. The exciting thing about
Speaker 1: a lot of these kind of activities that I just
Speaker 1: talked to you about is that they're classified as removal, right,
Speaker 1: rather than avoidance like you mentioned before. So when you,
Speaker 1: for example, when you build a clean energy project, that
Speaker 1: carbon is not being sucked out of the air and
Speaker 1: storing it somewhere like you mentioned, Dana, you're just avoiding
Speaker 1: emissions that might have come from a coal plant or
Speaker 1: a gas plant. And that dicotto me between removal and
Speaker 1: avoidance is very important. It might be the hottest topic
Speaker 1: in the carbon off set market today. So there's a
Speaker 1: lot of groups, like the Science Based Targets Initiative, for example,
Speaker 1: that acknowledge the importance of removal. In order for us
Speaker 1: to achieve our Paris goals, we can't just cut off
Speaker 1: emissions at the level they are today, right. We need
Speaker 1: to reduce our emissions back down to levels that we
Speaker 1: saw at previous times in history. In order to do that,
Speaker 1: we need removal. And so the perceived value of any
Speaker 1: type of project that can offer carbon removal is much
Speaker 1: higher overall than something that would avoid carbon emissions. So
Speaker 1: things like reforestation, for example, you're planting new trees in
Speaker 1: the ground, you're strengthening the soil, and you're leading to
Speaker 1: further carbon sequestration. Conversely, something like avoided deforestation, you're just
Speaker 1: protecting a tree and allowing it to continue storing or
Speaker 1: sequestering carbon that it would have otherwise if it wasn't
Speaker 1: under threat for example. So a lot of these agriculture activities,
Speaker 1: the nature of them being classified as removal is really
Speaker 1: important because that's going to give a fresh new injection
Speaker 1: in the coming years of removal carbonop sets supply into
Speaker 1: the market that's going to keep supply and demand in equilibrium.
Speaker 1: So in our long term carbonops that outlook that came
Speaker 1: out earlier this year, we did rene removal only scenario.
Speaker 1: We said, what happens if companies can only buy carbon
Speaker 1: offsets that remove or sequester carbon in order to achieve
Speaker 1: their net zero targets for example, And what we found
Speaker 1: is that the market becomes undersupplied a couple of years
Speaker 1: from now, and so around the late the market becomes
Speaker 1: undersupplied because there's so much demand coming from companies with
Speaker 1: net zero goals and as a result, the price of
Speaker 1: a carbon opos at skyrockets to what we estimate would
Speaker 1: be over two dollars a ton, far too expensive for
Speaker 1: pretty much any company to buy. If you add in
Speaker 1: an additional nine million metric tons of supply, which is
Speaker 1: what we forecast could come from the agriculture space into
Speaker 1: this room mo will only scenario, it might not prevent
Speaker 1: the market from becoming undersupplied, but what it does do
Speaker 1: is it pushes that timeline back where you reach that
Speaker 1: equilibrium point by maybe a decade for example. So that's
Speaker 1: going to play a huge role in keeping costs at
Speaker 1: a level that are affordable for companies to go ahead
Speaker 1: and buy these offsets, but also to keep a liquid
Speaker 1: and more dynamic market occurring. So it's a very important
Speaker 1: question that you ask. I'm also super intrigued by the
Speaker 1: whale carbon sequestration. I need to look into that a
Speaker 1: little bit more. I've never heard of that. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: not quite agriculture, but within the nature based solutions. I
Speaker 1: think the clickbait headline that brought me in was the
Speaker 1: world needs more whales because they'll sequester carbon. So I
Speaker 1: wonder if you can even group that into like blue
Speaker 1: carbon technically maybe I'll have to I mean, I think
Speaker 1: seaweed is probably a better parallel. Um Well, okay, So
Speaker 1: then this brings me to I think another question that
Speaker 1: it relates very much to the current times. So this
Speaker 1: is a small part of the overall carbon offset space
Speaker 1: right now, has the potential to not only scale better
Speaker 1: agricultural from more sustainable agricultural practices in the longer term
Speaker 1: and also become an increasingly large proportion of the offset space.
Speaker 1: But we are also headed into our first period without
Speaker 1: the Ukraine as a fairly large producer of grains for
Speaker 1: several parts of the world, but particularly Africa, So we're
Speaker 1: looking at, you know, some real crunch there, and I
Speaker 1: am wondering if, in times of you know, strain in
Speaker 1: the agricultural supply chain world, if there will be enough
Speaker 1: supply for offsets, and if these practices will essentially be
Speaker 1: thrown to the wayside for potentially quicker, faster, you know,
Speaker 1: other ways of making money in this space. That's absolutely
Speaker 1: a very big concern, and I think broadly the agriculture
Speaker 1: offset and market is very much at the whim of
Speaker 1: various macroeconomic factors. So in March of this year, the
Speaker 1: u n f a O Food Price Index reached an
Speaker 1: all time high, right, so food is in general very expensive.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, as you mentioned Danta, you
Speaker 1: lose a huge source of supply from the Russia and
Speaker 1: Ukraine in terms of things like wheat. That means two things.
Speaker 1: One of them means that countries domestically are going to
Speaker 1: need to ramp up their own supply to make up
Speaker 1: for the loss that comes from those countries like Russia
Speaker 1: and Ukraine. So it's a lot of these countries are
Speaker 1: going to need to start using more and more land
Speaker 1: for agriculture practices, and in general that just hurts the
Speaker 1: offset market. Right beyond agriculture offsets, when you think about,
Speaker 1: for example, protecting trees at risk, a lot of that
Speaker 1: land for forest today is going to be need to
Speaker 1: be used for agriculture for example. At the same time,
Speaker 1: if it becomes more expensive to produce food and there's
Speaker 1: more of a immediate need to produce it, that's also
Speaker 1: going to hurt the incentive for those all farmers and
Speaker 1: even large farmers as well to go ahead and adopt
Speaker 1: sustainable practices because again they're gonna be thinking much more
Speaker 1: about the financials and climate and emission reductions for example,
Speaker 1: will come to the back burner. So I think that
Speaker 1: that's absolutely a huge concern here. But more broadly, right
Speaker 1: as we think about climate disasters, as we think about
Speaker 1: supply chain bottlenecks, both of these things very much real
Speaker 1: concerns as well. Beyond the rush of Ukraine War, all
Speaker 1: of these things could plain uncontrollable role in agriculture offset supply,
Speaker 1: but I think more so in this space than pretty
Speaker 1: much any other sector that you're looking at for carbon offsets,
Speaker 1: So it's very important to keep tabs on. Okay, So, Kyle,
Speaker 1: this one caught my eye and you recently wrote this
Speaker 1: outlook on the agriculture offset space, and this is something
Speaker 1: I don't think I've seen before. So can you just
Speaker 1: discuss whether or not this is something we're going to
Speaker 1: be able to continually check in on, and whether or
Speaker 1: not if this space grows, you'll be keeping your finger
Speaker 1: on the pulse for it or is it a one off.
Speaker 1: We will absolutely be keeping our finger on the pulse
Speaker 1: in this market, and the plan long term is to
Speaker 1: integrate this into our long term carbon offsets outlook. So
Speaker 1: the next iteration of that report will come out early
Speaker 1: next year, most likely January. I mean in the previous version,
Speaker 1: agriculture was not one of the supply sources that we
Speaker 1: looked at when forecasting the price of carbon offsets. So
Speaker 1: the plan is to integrate this long term offsets, this
Speaker 1: agriculture outlook into our our broader long term offsets outlook.
Speaker 1: But then, as you mentioned, continue to keep tabs on
Speaker 1: some of these macroeconomic factors that we discussed, new innovative
Speaker 1: ways of sustainable agriculture that could produce offsets, and just
Speaker 1: in general, what does buyer appetite look like for offsets
Speaker 1: like this. So a lot of future plans here and
Speaker 1: a lot of exciting things on the horizon. Well, Kyle,
Speaker 1: thank you for joining today. I certainly am interested in
Speaker 1: all things that are technologies to scale and things that
Speaker 1: we think will look dramatically different potentially and certainly in
Speaker 1: twenty five. So thank you for coming and talking about
Speaker 1: the space and laying it out for us today. Yeah,
Speaker 1: thanks as always, Danna. Today's episode of Switched On was
Speaker 1: edited by Rex Warner of gray Stoke Media. Bloomberg An
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