b'FINDING THE VALUEIN CARBON MARKETSIncentivized carbon market opportunities continue to grow for forward-thinking farmers willing to utilize their soil to its greatest potential.Laura HandkeIN A WORLDdedicated to making strides to reduce green-house gas emissions, carbon markets arent a new concept. And with net-zero commitments from some of the worlds largest corporations, opportunities for both those looking to purchase carbon credits will only continue to grow. The beginning and the end are well established, says Locus Agricultural Solutions (Locus Ag) CEO Chad Pawlak of the rela-tionship between capturing carbon and finding interested buyers for the verifiable captured tons.If you ask a farmer if they would like to participate in a carbon market, most are saying yes, he says. The interest is there. Likewise, when you go to a buyer and offer the opportu-nity to buy proven carbon credits, the answer is also yes. Its the middle part thats extremely challenging: getting through the reporting, ensuring the transparency, enabling the third-party audits to ensure accuracy and international acceptance. Today, two carbon capture markets dominate the space: vol-untary and compliance. Both offer a marketplace for the creation and sale of sequestering greenhouse gasses from the atmos-phere. However, as the name would indicate, voluntary markets transact on the voluntary creation and purchase of carbon cap-ture in the soil rather than policy mandates.To further complicate the space, there are two main types of credits within the voluntary space. Greenhouse gas avoidance credits reward growers for reducing their contribution to the amount of carbon dioxide being created, while carbon sequestra-tion credits reward growers for measurable carbon sequestration.Finding ValueFor farmers, ranchers and specialty crop growers, finding the carbon market program that works best for their operation can be the most challenging part of the entire process. And with so many companies vying for acres today, finding the right fit in terms of deliverables and contractual obligation is arguably the most important aspect of the opportunity. Both Agoro Carbon and Locus Ags CarbonNOW programs pay for carbon sequestered in the soil.It takes about 15 minutes to install AGIs Farmobile PUC Agoro Carbon Alliance, formerly a subsidiary of parenttechnology, which captures and standardizes data in real-time. 54/ SEEDWORLD.COMJUNE 2022'