Crops > Costs & Returns > Carbon Market Information
Updated March, 2023
File A1-76
How to Grow and Sell Carbon Credits in US Agriculture
The emerging agriculture credits market can be currently characterized as an unarticulated patch of coexisting programs with different rules, incentives, and penalties, rather than as a cohesive and transparent market where the same activity has the same implication across programs. In its formative stage, the incipient agriculture credits market is very dynamic, focused on testing protocols through small-scale pilot programs, and lacks transparency and liquidity. How to Grow and Sell Carbon Credits in US Agriculture compares the requirements to grow and sell carbon and environmental services credits across eleven private voluntary agricultural programs in the United States. The side-by-side comparison of the 13 programs is organized into four groups, corresponding to Tables 1-4 in the accompanying PDF: carbon and ecosystem services credit entities, carbon credit entities, input suppliers, and data platforms. A companion publication, AgDM File A1-77, How do Data and Payments Flow through Ag Carbon Programs?, presents flowcharts to show the direction data, payments, methods, and carbon credits move within each carbon program. Additional resources on Carbon Markets can be found on the Ag Decision Maker webpage, Carbon Market Information.
Alejandro Plastina, extension economist, 515-294-6160, plastina@iastate.edu
Oranuch Wongpiyabovorn, economics graduate research assistant
