b'In late 2021, Locus Ag launched the first class of CarbonNOWticism amongst farmers causing a cautious entry into carbon carbon capture with the goal of signing-up 320,000 acres.market opportunities, important data collection strategies are Based on the rapid interest from growers eager to sign-up theirbeing missed that could prove costly in the future. acres, Locus announced in April that the CarbonNOW programRather than looking at these practices and the data they would expand to include an additional 1 million acres. generate from a carbon market perspective, in the long run it For both Agoro Carbon Alliance and CarbonNOW programs,is going to be important in the marketplace to be able to tell a grower interest is there, with one common denominator: verifi- regenerative ag story for every acre and compare the value of able documentation built through ongoing measurement. the practices being implemented. Data tells that story and it pro-vides a history of sustainability on every acre it is collected from. Data Tells the StoryTheres such a loose usage of the word data in the industryCarbon Credits are the Extratoday. If we think of what was considered data two decadesRegardless of which program or company they represent, one ago, we were looking to the yield monitor for that information,thing every stakeholder in the industry can agree on is the agro-says Steve Cubbage, vice president of Data for Farmobile. Imnomic benefits of implementing practices that capture carbon not sure the definition of data has evolved and I think we arehold for an acres production potential. hearing that from the marketplace. From a technology stand- Kraft says working in the carbon market space has provided point, a lot of the data being asked for today, the industry hasnthim and his team an opportunity to have conversations about been able to provide at scale. practices and perspective to help growers better understand Cubbage uses the example of a practice as seemingly simplebiology and the essential role it plays in production agriculture. as tillage, sharing while it is one of the most common field activi- We work with Regen Labs for all of our soil testing, so were ties and entries to base-level carbon market opportunities, thenot just delivering a basic soil test. Were able to talk to grow-practice isnt well documented and rarely documented digitally.ers about the biology in their soil, how its working for them That is one of the challenges we have concentrated on ator against them and just really have a conversation about why AGI Farmobile, filling the data gaps in field-level activities that arethings are happening the way they are, he says. You would be important to the marketplace, Cubbage says.surprised, the next time we talk to a grower, a lot of them say, I Proof, verification, and traceability are the pillars that dataspent 20 hours in the tractor listening to every podcast I could builds. However, Cubbage says that while there is still some skep- find on regenerative agriculture and soil health.SW58/ SEEDWORLD.COMJUNE 2022'