Ukraine’s farms get a boost from soil-based carbon credits
- Media Manager
- Jan 24, 2024
- 1 min read
Soil credits offer farmers diversified income, but do the climate claims stack up?
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Written By: Freya Pratty
Published: January 24th, 2024
Photo Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain
The uncertain export market has propelled farmers like Yarotsky to diversify their income streams. Many, Yarotsky included, have turned to carbon credits, specifically soil credits, as the answer.
Carbon credits represent emissions either removed from the atmosphere or avoided, which companies and countries buy to offset their own emissions. Soils could, if managed correctly, be a significant carbon sink. Soil-based carbon credits work by measuring the amount of carbon sequestered in land and issuing credits based on the increase.
Proponents of soil-based sequestration argue that farmers can increase the carbon in their soils by doing things like crop rotation — planting different crops to increase nutrient diversity — and reducing the amount of disruption to the soil through ploughing. The techniques are often described as “regenerative agriculture”.
