A new initiative is poised to change the carbon credit industry and increase the revenue stream to farmers. It also happens to have links to North Dakota, including Minot.

Tom Purdy, a partner with Thane Lewis in Thor’s Carbon and a consultant with Veterans Carbon Holdings, both Minot companies, said the game-changer is the ability to enhance crop capture of atmospheric carbon and then to quantitatively measure the amount of carbon transferred to the soil. Implementation of the technology started last year, and acreage in the program is growing, he said.

Other carbon programs don’t measure carbon gains and farmers aren’t compensated based on increases in carbon, Purdy explained.

“They’re just compensated slightly for enrolling in a carbon program,” he said. “That’s what created our niche.”

Thor’s Carbon, which is a distributor for the products used in the program and which conducts the soil sampling, has been pacing its growth by controlling the acreage enrolled as it builds staffing and its lab partner builds capacity. Currently, the company has signed up 600,000 acres and has plans to double or triple that amount next year, Purdy said.

Enrolled farmers apply a foliar branded as AgriFoliar to their crops. Foliars are commonly applied to plants to improve growth and health. Created by a Texas developer who targeted North Dakota’s Red River Valley to launch the product, AgriFoliar not only improves crop growth and yield but is known to enhance the ability of plants to draw carbon from the atmosphere and deposit it into the soil. It can be used with other farm practices that increase soil carbon, benefitting plant growth as well as aiding the environment, Purdy said.

“This helps climate change. We’re taking that carbon dioxide, which is increasing and which is causing this global warming, and putting it back in the ground,” he said.

Thor’s Carbon’s involvement in the certification process is through soil sampling.

“We go out and do the soil samples in the spring and in the fall. It’s a nine year program,” Purdy said. “We only do spring sampling once, because that’s where we get our base to compare the gains in carbon over the years. Then, every year, we measure the carbon in the fall after harvest.”

Along with sampling, the program incorporates documented data on the many soil types that exist in North Dakota to help determine the carbon gain.

“We target soil types because soil types actually process the carbon a little bit differently. Sandy soil happens to be the best for carbon increase,” Purdy said.

Soil samples are delivered to Agvise, a lab in Northwood, that analyzes the sample for carbon content.

“We have the ability to take these samples to a lab and concisely, quantitatively measure exactly how much carbon has been increased,” Purdy said. “It’s pretty high tech, but we are the only company in existence that has certified carbon measurement and certification. These carbon certificates can be sold in the European market now for twice the value that they go for here. It’s big money for these farmers.”

Thor’s Carbon provides the certification information to Veterans Carbon Holdings, which handles the marketing of carbon certificates. The certificates verify of carbon removal, or credits, which different entities look to acquire to offset their own carbon footprints.

As an example of how it works, an enrollment of 20,000 acres showing a one ton increase in carbon per acre would generate $1.32 on the carbon credit market, given a certificate rate of $66 per ton. After a 20% administration fee, the net return would be just over $1 million. The farmer portion is 55% of that return, which would be $580,800 for the first year in this case.

The annual farmer payment varies over the nine years, but the overall compensation is based on the total carbon increase, which currently is averaging 5 tons per acre annually, Purdy said. After nine years, in the sample case, the total farmer return on the 20,000 acres is more than $26 million.

The proceeds don’t factor in the cost of the foliar or the value of increased yield returns.

Currently, in the United States, a carbon credit is worth about $52 dollars, Purdy said recently .

“In the European market, which is what we’re going to target,” he said, “they’re worth over $100.”

Purdy, a Minot State University graduate and former wellsite geologist in the oil field, said he is scheduled to travel to Australia after harvest this year to train agronomists there on how to use the technology.

“They see the value and they’re so excited about it,” he said. “There’s also people in the U.K. that want to be trained in how to do it.”