There Are Big Opportunities in Carbon – and Ag Technology Can Enable Them
It’s not news that there are big opportunities for agriculture in the emerging market for carbon, writes AMVAC Executive Vice President Bob Trogele at CropLife. But what may be news to many is how big the carbon market already is – and how huge it is projected to become. Consider:
- The total value of global carbon markets jumped 20% last year to a record $277 billion. Most of this increase came from the European Union’s Emissions Trading System, which accounted for nearly 90% of global value, according to Reuters.
- The global emissions trading market could be worth as much as $22 trillion by 2050, according to Wood Mackenzie.
- Carbon now makes up about 5% to 10% of the trading activities at energy giant BP, the Wall Street Journal reports.
In the U.S., agriculture is squarely in the middle of the national conversation around carbon sequestration. With its 12% share of total carbon emissions in the U.S., agriculture ranks behind only transportation, power generation, and industry generally and is the only major source whose share of emissions has actually increased over the past 20 years, the Context Network reports. This in spite of numerous steps agriculture already has taken and currently takes in sustainability including conservation tillage; use of cover crops; increased fuel efficiency; and better management of water, fertilizer, and livestock manure.
Yet the future could be far brighter for agriculture, both sustainably and financially, if we could leverage emerging ag technologies to capitalize on emerging markets for carbon credits as well as the wider opportunities about the overall value of healthy farmland – which, after all, is nearly every farmer’s most valuable asset and is gaining value all the time and reached a record $4,420 per acre at the time of this writing.