TFF Joins Indigo Ag’s Carbon Issuance Event
On June 29-30, 2022, Thought For Food joined Indigo Ag at their inaugural Indigo Credit Issuance. At the historical Chicago Board of Trade, Indigo celebrated the issuance of the first ~20,000 verified carbon credits produced by 175 large-scale growers across the USA – ushering in a new era of food system transformation and unleashing new opportunities for agriculture in the multi-billion dollar voluntary carbon market.
📢 NOW AVAILABLE: ALL THREE EPISODES in our series about our experience in Chicago learning about Indigo’s Carbon Program. We will be rolling out each episode over the coming weeks in the lead up to Generation Fest that takes place on September 30th in Brooklyn, where you will have the chance to meet Indigo’s Chief Digital Officer Maria Belousova and learn more about this exciting program!
👨🏽🌾 Episode 1: What was the Indigo Issuance All About?
🌽 Episode 2: Why are high-quality ag carbon credits so important?
🌎 Episode 3: How are farmers and the planet benefiting?
🤔 Why does it matter?
The TFF community is keenly aware of the way climate change is impacting our environment, our health, and our economies. “Once-in-a-lifetime” weather emergencies are becoming regular occurrences.
Food systems account for 1/3 of all greenhouse gasses (GHGs), and rising temperatures and erratic weather patterns make already-volatile agriculture even more risky. Our global community of next-gen innovators are going to be living in this future – which is why we celebrate every partner and tool joining us in the fight against the climate emergency.
We firmly believe that agriculture can be part of the solution.
Indigo’s ~20,000 credits issued by the Climate Action Reserve represent an important step towards a robust agricultural system that captures more carbon than it puts out. They’re working alongside a new generation of growers that are increasingly data-savvy and environmentally-aware, one credit at a time.
By aligning the growing demand for credits with supply, and rewarding agricultural practices that reduce GHG emissions, Indigo Ag is supporting the farmers that make a difference at the front lines of climate change.
👩🏽🌾 How does it work?
For farmers and businesses alike, regenerative agriculture – and the carbon emissions it can avoid – presents an exciting opportunity:
- The generation, issuance, and sale of carbon credits represent a significant new form of digital revenue for farmers and incentivizes them to introduce practices like no-till and cover crops on the farm.
- Companies of all types are excited to meaningfully offset their emissions by working with growers and supporting their transition to more sustainable production methods.
- And, buyers of carbon credits want to make sure that the credits they purchase are third-party verified and scientifically-based in order to ensure their integrity, transparency, and value.
The question for regenerative agriculture hasn’t been WHETHER it reduces emissions, but how much and for how long. Today, cutting edge tools and technologies are providing these answers.
Indigo has built an end-to-end approach to quantifying regenerative agriculture impacts that financially incentivizes farmers to implement new technologies and practices. Leveraging advanced modeling powered by remote sensing, Indigo Ag is able to calculate a grower’s impact on GHG emissions, and turn that into a credit that gets sold on the voluntary carbon market.
This incentive is really important as tight margins mean it can be challenging for farmers to make the transition away from the practices they have been using for generations. As of today, $30 per credit goes to Carbon by Indigo farmers for verified credits produced and sold in both the 2020 and 2021crops – and this number is growing!
🌽 What did we learn?
At Indigo’s A New Harvest event, we got to know the journeys of the many passionate people at Indigo Ag and in the partnering communities who have spent years building and refining this program. We also got to talk to leading soil scientists, sustainability experts, carbon credit buyers – and most importantly, to farmers.
The consensus was clear: Carbon credits are a key mechanism for making regenerative agriculture productive and profitable.
The sense of community and energy we felt was palpable. TFF has worked with carbon farming experts and practitioners around the world for years, promoting regenerative agriculture and circular economies as the foundation for game-changing innovation in food systems.
It was energizing and inspiring to see some of the leading voices in agriculture rallying around the same cause – because all of us need to be working together and supporting one another to get ourselves out of this climate mess.
Grab your ticket and join us at Generation Fest this September 30th! You will have the chance to meet Indigo Ag, learn about the work they are doing for soil carbon farming, and ask them the burning questions on your mind!
🏃🏻♀️ Run, don’t walk – space is limited!