ECO Harvest
ESMC is a non-profit that compensates farmers and ranchers who improve the environment through their agricultural practices. Our market program, Eco-Harvest, reduces greenhouse gases, improves water quality, and increases other ecosystem services to benefit society.
General Mills and NACD have partnered to offer a carbon credit program (Kansas & Oklahoma). You will self-certify that you have made a practice change. A soil test in the first year will establish the baseline. A 30-minute interview after enrolling will also be required.
Requirements: Wheat must be in the rotation to qualify AND a 5-year commitment to implement practice change. Goal: 30,000 total acres in Kansas and Oklahoma
- Guaranteed payment of $16/ton of carbon (using an estimate based on the practice change). $15.20/ton to the producer after administrative fee.
- Field data recorded every year for each field enrolled in the program.
- Implement a practice change prior to that year's crops. Practice changes options:
- Utilize cover crop for the first time
- Switch from conventional till to reduced or no-till
- Change the nutrient plan
In August 2022, Eco-Harvest became the first agricultural market program in the US to reach program and pilot validation and verification under the SustainCERT Value Change Initiative (VCI).
Read why this is important. In June 2023, we announced that Eco-Harvest is the first market program to use SustainCERT’s Innovative Value Chain Decarbonization Platform.
Ecosystem Services
Offsetting the environmental damage that economic activity brings is a major priority across the globe. Faced with existential threats to life, public and private sectors globally are joining to reduce the causes of and impacts from climate change, reduce water stress, and improve water quality, and improve the environment while equitably feeding a global population expected to top 9 billion by 2050.
According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, ecosystem services are the multitude of benefits that nature provides to society. Ecosystem services provide nutritious food and clean water, regulate disease and climate, support the pollination of crops and soil formation, and provide recreational, cultural, and spiritual benefits.
Regenerative agriculture has a key role in increasing ecosystem services. ESMC’s national-scale, harmonized program allows farmers and ranchers to enroll and receive technical assistance to undertake a journey to improved resilience, climate change mitigation, and improved environmental outcomes in a program that pays and recognizes them for ecosystem services that benefit society.
Non-profit organizations like The Nature Conservancy and World Wildlife Fund are Founding Circle members of ESMC.
What You Can Do
Read more about our work quantifying the benefits of ecosystem services using innovative, science-based, and standards-based methodologies and investments to develop improved monitoring, reporting and verification technologies.
Review economic analyses to learn more about the value of ecosystem services.
Find protocol assessments to better understand the state of the science.