Carbon is a greenhouse gas that traps heat in the atmosphere and causes global warming. More and more companies are pledging to offset their carbon footprint.
South Dakota farmers and ranchers may play a role in that reduction.
About 25 producers from northwestern South Dakota gather in the Branding Iron Steakhouse just south of Belle Fourche to hear a presentation from the South Dakota Farm Bureau about carbon and climate.
Shelby Myers is an American Farm Bureau economist. She says several corporations want to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by a certain year.
“What the goal is is to find a seal to put on their product that says this is environmentally friendly, or this is a net-zero product, something that they know consumers are interested in seeing on their products,” Myers says.
One way corporations can do that is by purchasing carbon credits from producers who employ sustainable practices on their operation. Essentially, companies will pay farmers and ranchers to store carbon in the ground. Producers do that by engaging in carbon-sequestering practices like planting cover crops in idle fields, using the no-till method of farming, and preventing over-grazing in their pastures.
Clay Conry runs a cow-calf operation northeast of Newell.
He’s interested in carbon credits because it’s a market-based solution that pays farmers and ranchers for practices that improve the land.
“Every day my goal is to make sure that my cows are impacting the land in a way that makes that land better,” Conry says. “Makes that land able to hold more water, hold more carbon, grow more forage next year, which ultimately provides a good set of resources for the wildlife in my community and in my neighborhood to use.”
The credit markets are still evolving, but some companies are already offering enrollment periods in South Dakota.