A major international research institute is developing tools that will help grain producers precisely measure how much carbon is being sequestered on their farms.
Some firms are already paying farmers for the carbon they capture based on estimates derived from employing certain agronomic practices.
Steve Webb, chief executive officer of the Global Institute for Food Security (GIFS), said that is a good start that will help create a marketplace for paying farmers to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
But GIFS believes there needs to be a system in place for rewarding farmers that is as scientifically valid and straightforward as the system for taxing them for the carbon they use.
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“Being able to actually measure (sequestration) provides transparency, provides credibility to the entire process,” he said.
And the institute has access to the sophisticated research equipment to do just that.
GIFS is located at the University of Saskatchewan, which is home to both a synchrotron and a cyclotron. That is a unique combination in the western hemisphere.
Those two machines provide GIFS researchers with the ability to produce high resolution images at both the whole plant and cellular levels.
“We’re developing tools and sensors to measure photosynthesis rates in plots,” said Webb.
Photosynthesis is a proxy for how much carbon gets sequestered in a plant. The data will be used to develop algorithms to measure carbon sequestration at a system level.
Duane Haave, general manager of the Agricultural Producers Association of Saskatchewan, believes there are several groups working on ways to measure carbon capture.
“It looks like these technologies may be advancing, which is good,” he said.
“The more certainty you have about the data, the easier it is to design a program.”
Saskatchewan is developing an offset protocol it hopes to implement by 2021. Haave hopes the province keeps the design of the program flexible so it can accommodate new technologies such as the one GIFS is developing.
Regulators have said they want a program based on measurable data rather than estimates and assumptions. Haave hopes the GIFS project would assuage those concerns.
The GIFS carbon sequestration project is building off of the plant breeding work being done by the Plant Phenotyping and Imaging Research Centre, a group managed by GIFS.
“The tools and technologies that we have been developing to accelerate breeding can be leveraged into this space,” said Webb.
The project is still in “early days” but it won’t be too long before there could be a product on the market.
“I think an operable system within three years is doable,” said Webb.
That is music to the ears of Haave.
“It’s very exciting that they’re thinking they’re that close,” he said.
Webb is still unsure what the real-time sensor technology will look like, how much it will cost or how it will be used.
But it will likely employ some combination of in-field, drone and satellite-based data and analysis. A company may provide the service for farmers or growers may be able to do it themselves.
Webb said farmers will also be able to use the tools to help determine which fields are the most productive and which ones should be converted to pasture or forage production.
“It might offer a new opportunity to further enhance the management of the farm,” he said.
Firms that are already paying farmers for sequestration say the carbon credit can amount to $1 to $2 per acre, depending on the soil zone.
Webb hopes the GIFS technology would bump that payment higher. He sees no reason why farmers shouldn’t be receiving the same $50 per tonne they will soon by paying as a carbon tax if there is a reliable and accurate way to measure sequestration.
In theory, it would be no different than measuring the amount of natural gas they are using to dry their grain.
