00:00 I I know there's a lot of people that are farmers and farm owners that are skeptical about all of this and like what the hell is this thing all about? 00:09 Are they coming snooping on me and my inviting the EPA out of my farm we're going to get to that because trust me. I'm I'm kind of 00:15 there. I'm not quite the conspiracy guy. I don't have aluminum foil on my on my hands to be not determine. 00:21 Okay, maybe I am but the point is I understand the skepticism. I understand the critical questions and I understand the frankly. It's it's 00:30 a lot of vagueness out here. So we're gonna get told that welcome to extreme eggs cutting the curve podcast where you get a guarantee 00:39 return on investment of your time as we cut your learning curve with the information. You can apply to your farming operation immediately extreme egg. 00:48 We've already made the mistakes so you don't have to managing your Farms Water Resources is a critical component to a successful 00:57 and sustainable farming operation. Advanced Drainage Systems helps Farmers just like you increase their yields up to 30% with their 01:06 technologically advanced Water Management products visit ads pipe.com to see how they can keep your business flowing. 01:15 Now, here's your host Damien Mason Walgreens and welcome to another fantastic and educational informative insightful episode of cutting 01:24 the curve. I'm Damien Mason and I have Mariah Murphy she is the director of retailer and farmer services for True Tara. We're going to be talking 01:33 about carbon talking about how you can get paid for carbon talking about the environmental benefit and I'm 01:39 talking about compensation that you can bring to your farm through what is basically a completely new frontier. And 01:45 also we're going to answer a lot of questions. You probably have because you know what, I've talked to Mariah a couple of different times last 01:51 I saw her was up at Baltic South Dakota at the AG PhD field day and I always ask her like explain this, you know, I'm a farm 02:00 owner and I'm not getting paid for carbon. I'm not getting paid for nitrogen capture explain this to me so she's gonna explain 02:06 it all to us, right? Thanks for being here. Yeah, you know, we're gonna talk about some Carmen we're gonna talk about some other ecosystem Services 02:12 bringing forward. I'm really excited that we So new things that we're going to be launching will be launching those on January 17th. So some of these things go live just really 02:22 quickly and we'll be able to bring forward some new opportunities for both those Farmers that are already participating in carbon markets, but then those 02:31 Farmers that are interested in carbon markets and so okay. So that's exactly what I want to first off use the term and I forgot it 02:37 since I saw you in July up in Baltic ecosystem Services, I think you even had another term for it. I thought it was environmental compensation or something like 02:46 that, but let's call you services. Yeah, we call. I mean I tend to use ecosystem Services because I feel like carbon credits really put everyone 02:55 in one box. Right? So you're only talking about carbon capture or carbon storage. Whereas ecosystem services will 03:01 also allow you to look at things like water quality allows you to look at things like soil Health. It also kind of then branches into the reductions 03:10 credit. So as you talk about nitrogen reductions or stabilizer additions of stabilizers all of those feed into the ecosystem services 03:19 along with carbon credits, and so I think it's important to just frame that up. Yeah. Okay. So let's start at 03:25 the beginning because I think there is this thing that is still fairly undefined. It's not quite wild west but it's certainly not as defined as say 03:34 the CME, you know, like if I have a bushel of corn I know sure as hell how to sell it. I know how to price it for the future. I know where I can take it and deliver it like in the next hour. It's 03:43 very crystal clear. It is a Marketplace. None of this stuff is quite there. So we to get to that so let's start at the the that right there. 03:52 It's not really a Marketplace. How do I know what either this stuff is worth? Explain me the whole entire ecosystem services. 04:00 As though you're explaining the Chicago Board of Trade to a novice. Yeah. 04:05 so I think it means that have created these climate commitments. Right? And so you have many organizations that have have come forward 04:18 publicly about 12 to 1300 of them actually in the United States alone that have come forward and said in some way shape or form. We're going to reduce emissions. We're 04:27 going to become a you know, Net Zero, you know, we're gonna we're gonna do all of these things and quite frankly they are the 04:36 ones that are bringing forward the actual funding to be able to do this to work with these farmers. And so that's kind of the first step is you have all these, you know, 04:45 12 to 1300 companies that have made these commitments then you move into how are we going to Source this how are 04:51 we going to find this? And so that's how true Tara comes into play. So truchera is the sustainability division of Land O'Lakes. So we are part of 05:00 the Land O'Lakes umbrella, which is a hundred year old Cooperative. So these companies come to us and they say Hey, you know, 05:06 we we're working on becoming that net zero, right? What can you do to help us we want to do something in agriculture. And so we 05:12 Help them develop Solutions. And so that means that now we're able to offer programs to Farmers around ecosystem services. And 05:21 so that may be, you know, reducing tillage that may be moving to a no-till planting cover crops for the first time reducing your overall nitrogen use and so that's what 05:30 those organizations are really based upon is they want to come back. That's what the organizations are based on that their commitment or their mission. Yeah is based 05:39 on that because they're whatever there's some company that says we make widgets and we know that to be appealing to our shareholders 05:48 or to our customers. We need to say to our customers and shareholders that we are not just a maker of widgets. We are also concerned a 05:58 company about the environment and we are putting our money where our mouth is we're giving this million dollars 06:04 Now take me from that to the next thing. I give a million dollars. I'm the widget manufacturer. I'm widget Inc. And I give a million. 06:12 Are to you and then you go and give it to a farmer. Tell me how the thing works, but you're in Farmer. 06:19 Correct. So basically they give the money to trutera trutera will then facilitate a program to work with our Farmers. 06:25 We also are doing the verification we're doing, you know, the quantifications we're doing the modeling and so there's a significant amount of money that goes 06:34 into actually creating what I would call these ecosystem assets. You know, I think the key thing is 06:40 that we have all these pieces right that go into it. And so it's the modeling and the quantification and a lot of people think. Oh, 06:46 it's just as simple as putting that pass through like someone gives you money you give it to the farmer and then everyone wins, right? But the 06:52 reality is there's a lot of behind the scenes pieces that go into actually creating an environmental and environmental 06:58 asset. And so you have to you have you have significant costs from the modeling the quantification the soil sampling and then 07:07 the final stop is with the farmer. And so yeah, go ahead. Well my thing here is yeah, so 07:16 I said how just in in very big and foot overview Widget widget manufacturer gives a million dollars to you and they say hey we want us to tell our shareholders our customers 07:28 that we care about the environment and then they give you a million bucks. And that's really they don't they don't buy they don't get anything for that necessarily 07:37 other than PR and good will because they're not required to do it right now the government didn't say you've got to give a million dollars to environment to ecosystem Services, 07:46 right? Yeah, but they are actually getting a serialized credit. So whenever a farmer decides 07:53 to sell their credit, so if they sell a carbon credit, that's just an easy example today if they sell a carbon credit that credit then is is tied to a serial 08:02 number. The geolocation is tied to that serial number and then those organizations that are purchasing these removals or these insects whichever their purchasing 08:11 they will then actually get a serialized number of the credit that they're buying so they are getting something it's it's more of a you 08:20 know, they're getting something from a paper trail so they can say that they've actually purchased these but they are actually getting a 08:26 serialized credit to from the from the farmer. Okay. Why do they give the money to True Tara? Do you have a sales force that's going to widget 08:37 manufacturers and saying if you care about the environment we can help you make a pledge and and cook you up 08:43 at the farm ground. Is that part of what trutera does for their for their peace of the million dollars? Yeah, so 08:49 we have both. Upstream so we have an upstream sales team which means we have people that are working in the field with ag retailers and with Farmers, 08:57 so we have that side, but then we also have a trutera a downstream sales organization. And so that Downstream sales organization is doing exactly that they 09:06 are working with these organizations to help bring them into the trutera network. Help them figure out what their goals are and how they can 09:15 obtain them and then we kind of work both upstream and downstream. So retailer to the cpg through all of these pieces the cpg wait 09:24 the cpg use your package good. Yes. Sorry the consumer package. like a Walmart to Target a 09:32 General okay. So you name three companies right there. Are those three companies you're working with? I just I just named. 09:40 Some companies that you are working with. So we work with Campbell's we work with Tate and Lyle, which is a British based company. They do a lot of 09:49 corn syrup. We're working with ingredients on I mean, there's several organizations that we are working with that are purchasing. 09:58 Removals from us. Yeah, I got just about it and you just call them purchasing removals. So let's talk about how this thing came to came together because I found Kelly 10:07 Garrett over this yeah fire thing and then he loves to tell the story. He says that I stalked him. I at Christmas time a year and a 10:16 half ago two years ago. Yeah, two years ago two years ago. Goodness sakes where does the time goes over two years ago more than two years ago. I'm picking up the Wall Street Journal of the business section has this bald 10:25 headed Farm guy and it says Farmers selling carbon. I'm like, whoa. I've been hearing about this for a number of years, but I've never actually seen it come to fruition. I've been 10:34 hearing about carbon credit carbon Credit Karma Credit. So anyway, it was all about Kelly and he was one of the first people 10:40 if not the first person that I ever knew in production agriculture to get paid for this. So tell me how it worked for him 10:46 and how it works between you and him. Yeah, I can absolutely go through that. But first was he wearing a cut-off shirt or did he actually have sleeves? Well, it 10:56 was winter time when the photo was taken. So I believe in a jacket on and he was not wearing a hat. My mother always said 11:02 when you got in the cold you should wear a hat because 40% of your body heat goes up the you know goes up through your roof. If you don't wear hair he was 11:08 not wearing a hand. So actually I should have scold them but I didn't know him at the time when I saw the oh that's funny. Okay. So 11:14 how it works for Kelly. So basically if you are a farmer that are that is interested in selling your 11:20 carbon credits. You would come first. Stop is through the true Tara AG website. So truecareag.com. There is a 30 second survey that survey asked 11:29 you eight questions and that is going to be kind of the preliminary sorting process. So with those eight questions, we will then know. Yes. This 11:38 is a pretty good candidate for carbon or this might be a good candidate for our new service that we're offering which is a soil Health assessment. Oh new service Health 11:47 assessment. All right, so, all right. So so like I'm a farm owner a farmer I go to the trutera website. I fill this 11:56 out and then you decide whether or not because it's kind of like an application. Yeah, I mean basically it's gonna allow us to 12:02 See your preliminary answers and responses of when you made a practice change. Are you planning cover crops? And that will help us better understand where you fit? Okay, then you 12:11 go from there. And I'm not I don't have to turn over like my financials. You're not stealing my identity and my youngest-born 12:21 child. I'm just saying yeah, here's my I have I can I put all the fakers. I farm or only the ones that I own. 12:29 So you can actually put all the Acres that you farm so you can do rented and owned you can do one field or 12:35 you can do 50 fields that's completely up to you. So it is very flexible from that standpoint. Okay, so I'm a farmer I go on this website and trutera.com and 12:44 somewhere on there says enroll or apply or what not, right? Yep, so you go to True Terra and calm. 12:51 it will be a 30 Cent survey you click enroll. We're gonna ask you things. Like did you plant a cover crop? Yes or no. When did you start planting 12:58 cover crops? Was it within the last four years same thing with tillage? You know, are you have you reduced tillage 13:05 or gone to a hotel? Yes or no? It's a very simple simple survey and then you will 13:11 get through the next level. Right? And so yeah Maria, here's the thing. Some of us have been around this game long enough. 13:19 That for instance CRP. I know that you're you this is something you know about but I was around when it came out 1986 CRP conservation Reserve program comes out from the US Department of Agriculture. And 13:31 the thing is some has been around long enough to realize wait a minute. Some of us were putting in 13:37 waterways before the government paid for it because it was the right thing to do. You took care of your ground some of us were and 13:43 the thing is if you look at much of what the US Department of our culture programs and things like CRP do they punish you if you were doing 13:52 the right thing before the program and so I want to go there with you in other words. I can't enroll ground and see our P unless it's 14:01 been in a row crop if I've been putting it in like continuous. Hay field. It doesn't qualify. It's 14:07 like well that field has a 30 degree slope. Of course, it should be in continuous. Hey field. Oh, but it's not eligible. In other 14:13 words. They punish you if you did the right thing does this thing you're talking about punish me if I answer I don't I haven't done tillage for 14:19 10 years. I Do cover crops every year then you say well, we're not really gaining anything with you 14:25 because you're already doing the right thing. Am I getting punished right thing? 14:29 Yeah, so I mean, I don't know the punish is the right. I like the word punish. I like the word. I like I like where I like to 14:35 be because I like to be very over the top with my adjectives. I'd like to use the word big companies extorting punishing. I 14:41 know. Yeah. Okay. So so I like to be dramatic Mariah I haven't noticed. So are you eligible if you've been doing tillage for 14:52 10 years? No, you're not. You're not eligible to sell your actual carbon credits. Okay, are you eligible to do like you heard me mention a 15:01 nitrogen reduction credit or reduction credit? Yes, if you reduce your nitrogen, you are now eligible in a 15:07 program, you know, that wasn't available two years ago. And so what I would like to say is that the the marketplace is evolving, you know, where where a 15:16 lot of farmers felt like oh man, like I've been doing the right thing for a long time. I'm not eligible for any of this. We are 15:22 coming forward with programs and services and opportunities to where you are eligible. So the point is I may not be as 15:28 eligible if I've been doing cover crops and reduce tillage for the last 10 years is what I'm hearing. Yeah. 15:34 Yes, yes, but I want to also be very clear that we are also working really hard to create programs and services that will allow for Farmers that 15:43 have been in this situation to become eligible for new programs. And so you may have heard that the USDA came out 15:49 with the climate smart commodity winners trutera was selected as one of those winners for up to 90 million dollars. And so one of the focuses of the grant that we 15:59 will be that we will be focusing on is those long-term adopters and so we're going to be bringing forward a program for those long-term adopters to actually get compensated in 16:08 a one-time payment for for up to five years. And so that is going to be something that we feel is 16:17 going to really help kind of change the shape of the market. It's going to help create some more consistency within the market but it's also going to allow these 16:26 Farmers to get that experience in a carbon credit program, but then also help them fit into other 16:32 things like we just mentioned with the stabil. Usage or the nitrogen reduction or something along those lines now before getting to those things because that's in and the 16:40 last time we talked was all about C carbon and so I want to get I want to get I'll talk about in nitrogen after we get through this one. 16:48 Are you controlling? I'm trying to play The Devil's Advocate. I'm a skeptical farmer. I'm sitting there at the coffee shop with 16:54 cut my other farmer buddies. Are you gonna control my farming practices? No, I mean we're not we're not controlling your farmer. You're 17:01 farming practices. The idea is that we you know, I mentioned the soil Health assessment earlier. So the soil Health assessment is going to be the first of its 17:10 kind it's going to really measure how healthy is your soil. It's gonna be based off of six key attributes that we have identified along with the soil Health Institute. Those 17:19 six key attributes are gonna help measure is your soil Health a low medium or high and if you're sitting in that low position, we're gonna help you create a plan 17:28 that will hopefully get you into a medium or high, you know rating because you 17:34 send out do you send out as a true Terra agronomist come out and do this or how does the soil Health assessment work 17:40 tomorrow? So again, you know, we have a lot of new things coming. Right and so one of those pieces is going 17:48 to be a round transition advisors. And so these transition advisors will be working with Farmers either 17:54 through your AG retailer or direct to Farmer. And so we will be able to provide you that Insight in sort of that planning process directly either 18:04 from church or through a true chair aligned retailer. Yeah. I mean, obviously you are Land O'Lakes works with 18:10 cooperatives Etc around the country. So you might send it when people Are you taking my data? This 18:18 is obviously another big concern that I know that farmers have is this just a chance for you to get your 18:24 foot in the door so you can then steal my data or my information I and I'm just telling these are kind of things that you hear out there in the marketplace. I want you to 18:34 shed some light on it. Yeah, you know, I think that's a that's a great question. Um data privacy is very important to us as Land O'Lakes the whole 18:43 we know that the farmer owns the data are we taking the data and selling the data? No, we're not. Um, you know, are we creating those aggregated, you 18:52 know pieces of information from a group of farmers and working with our Downstream organizations sure. We are 19:01 doing that but it's not individualized farmer data that is actually going to these organizations. Now, once you start telling the actual carbon 19:10 credits that individualized data does go into that serial number right? But you're not seeing the actual data. You're just 19:16 getting that geo location of the field and the serial number that goes along with it. The data stays inside of the true care assistant and so we will 19:25 never provide data any lower than a county level aggregation. And so that data is always at a minimum of accounting level. 19:34 How long and okay and by the way, I'm again. I'm asked this because I know our listener and I know the extreme AG listener in my opinion. This is another 19:43 Revenue Source, right? This is another way to make money. You've got you can sell you've got a acre you can grow a crop on that acre. And then is there another 19:52 thing you can make off of that acre and I think that environmental or sorry ecosystem services. 19:58 Is another way it's a revenue source. but first off how long am I let's say I go to your website. I fill this out then one of 20:08 your retailers or an agronomist from one of the true Tara Land O'Lakes family of retailers. Somebody 20:14 comes out and then they say, yes, you're eligible. We can get you these payments how long am I 20:24 committed? Okay, so it depends on what what you're signing up for right? So our carbon contract is actually a one-year contract with a five-year 20:35 reporting tale. Meaning you're going to sell your carving credits for one year, but then you are 20:41 committed to a reporting data on that same field for five years so it so that's kind of our carbon contract it auto renews 20:50 every year. So if you want to keep selling your carbon you're absolutely able to do so, you just keep reporting your data. So it's a one-year contract and the 20:59 data I'm reporting to you is what I'm reporting to you that I used cover crops and that I didn't and I reduce tillage or 21:05 my reporting to you. Here's how many gallons of diesel I used. Here's how many ounces of herbicide I put on what data is not giving 21:11 you. So it's a it's about 36 to 38 data points. It's gonna be basic basic information that you have. So planting date 21:20 harvest date crop. Obviously, it's going to be your fertilizer. It's you know, it's 21:26 be the yield it's not going to be any fuel usage or anything like that. It's going to be agronomic. But if I say I went out 21:35 and I you know what I went out there and I sprayed the hell out of this thing with herbicide. Does that hurt me? 21:40 No, you you are going to be able to you you will say, you know, you're not tracking the herbicide passes. We're only tracking the fertilizer usage 21:49 and things of that nature. It is not going to be around, you know, your fuel and in your herbicide use and 21:58 things like that. So I might be committed for a year or might be and in other words. You're not tying me up for the next decade. 22:05 No not no. We are not tying up for the next decade. That's the other thing that has really evolved right is the contract links 22:11 and the contract times. If you remember when we talked, I don't know two years ago, right the contracts were were a bit more burdensome. They were quite lengthy 22:20 but I think as the as the continuation in the evolution of ecosystem Services continues to evolve so does the content I am so glad that you 22:29 said that because the last time we talked about this was way back when we first when I first started extreme egg, it seemed to me 22:35 that it was a long-term thing and it was almost like prohibitive and you're telling me that we've all done that now, 22:41 Yeah, I mean we're definitely we have evolved things have gotten you know, they they have changed they've evolved and so the contract has evolved right along with that 22:50 and I think that you know, that's probably one of the the best things that we've done over the last couple of years is that 22:56 we've really taken a good hard look at at here's the actual contract links. Here's what we here's what we know farmers are comfortable with and what they will sign up for. 23:05 How much money are we talking about and I'll give you example, I was at a farmer AG conference several years ago up in Alberta the province of 23:14 Alberta and also the Canadian government was ahead of the United States on this and they started requiring certain practices because of the carbon thing and they 23:23 packaged it as we're going to make you do this or not. Allow you to do that. but we'll give you 23:33 you know six dollars an acre or something and I remember thinking like that ain't very much money is I mean, 23:39 why would I want to Jack around and this in this era of cash rents went up, you know 12 to 20 percent last year, you know commodity prices are good is enough 23:48 money for me to fool with Yeah, I mean so so I would say yes, we we've had many farmers that have been very successful like Kelly himself 23:57 selling their carbon and being part of a carbon program. We are paying up to $30 a ton. And so that is also something that continues to 24:06 evolve as just up to 30 dollars a ton and then I know if I go by a ton of scrap metal what that feels like. I know if 24:16 I buy, you know a ton of you know stone at the Corey. I know what that feels. Like. How do I know what a ton of carbon feels like 24:24 Yeah, so how you're gonna how you're gonna know what that feels like right is from the quantification in the modeling. And so you're gonna take all those data points that we talked about earlier and we're 24:33 going to then take the soil samples. We're going to combine both of those send them to our partners at CSU Colorado State 24:39 University. They're Gonna Run them through modeling. The modeling is extremely cumbersome. It actually takes about 24:45 20 to 30 minutes per field to model out orange. Yeah, it's extremely intense and then they're gonna come back to us and they're gonna say Hey you sequestered or you store 24:55 0.4 tons, right? And so you're not actually going to feel it. You're not actually gonna see it but it is going to be a quantification that comes back as a result 25:04 of modeling. Okay, and then you saying like for instance you just use a number of point four tons that and on acre 25:11 Yeah point four tons per acre. I use that because that's the national average. 25:15 That's exactly why I asked you to explain that so point four tons per acre is a national average. So that means point 4 times 30 bucks. I'm talking 25:24 about getting twelve dollars a bucks. Yeah 12 bucks an acre. Is that enough? 25:34 I mean, I think it to me. I feel like it is yes, you know, I think that that is up to every farmer and every farmer's choice and decision. The thing 25:43 that I would say is that if you are interested in coming into a carbon program like getting that am I getting that every year 25:50 Yeah, so that's a thing if it's a want if it's a one-time payment I go through all this rigmarole and I do all this stuff and then you give me 12 bucks Mike. Holy hell. 25:59 I'm not sure it's worth all that, but it's 12 bucks in. Yeah, so so that's where you have to be really careful. Right? So our trutera We are continuing to purchase these credits 26:09 year over year right? Some organizations may not choose to buy those credits you're over here. And so it may be just a one-time payment and so trattera has 26:18 really trying to make this as farmer focused as possible. And so what we will do is we actually will continue 26:24 to purchase those credits. So they're kind of grandfathered in the key thing that you have to keep in mind as you're in the 26:30 carbon programs is and we talked about this before I know is that once you make that change so you have that additionality so 26:36 moving to the cover crops or the no-till then to exit a program. You have to go get into another program. The only way to get into a lot of these programs is to 26:45 have another form of additionality right sociality. Are you gonna use additionality on the cutting the group podcast and they're gonna do understand and you're gonna 26:55 add something I know adding a practice. Hey answer me. This is one of the concerns I've heard in the past was okay. They 27:03 Sign up for this thing and then you're committed and then if you lose that farm ground, you gotta pay it back. Well, you just told 27:09 me that the terms now are not over five 10 12 years. It's over one year. So if if someone comes the neighbor door knocks and out, rinse me 27:18 for this 160 acre chunk of ground down the road. I don't have to pay you back for something for money you gave me last year. 27:25 right Correct. Again, we actually care we've tried to make it very far more focused. We tried to make it very flexible for the farmer. We 27:33 understand that these things happen would we like to continue the contract with the next tenant? Absolutely and and we would ask that they provide sort of 27:42 that information for us to be able to do so, but it's not a situation where we're gonna ask the farmer back for money. Yeah there, you know. The only 27:51 time we would ever ask for money back is if we found out a farmer was being just down right fraudulent, right? Yeah, like they said they 27:57 said we we do cover crops and we know till you got there to get the mold board plow. There's never been to cover crop and they're just also they're 28:07 lying to you. So you do have a course on that. Yeah, like so if we found out that it was actually fraudulent. We do have recourse on that piece and 28:16 that would be you know, really the the time that we would use it. It's it's nothing really Beyond. Something like that, you know something we should talk about though for 28:25 all the farmers online. I don't know how much time we have but you know tenant or a landlords right? And so 28:31 there's a new kind of a new Group of people like you that are saying hey, Mr. Farmer, I want you to do these practices so 28:40 that I can I can get a cut of the carbon. That's exactly where I was going with this. Yes. I do not 28:46 operate my Acres but I own acres and I am pretty involved. And I also I want my Farmer to make money we go through 28:52 every year business discussions that make him you know to help him make money, but also we got to do right by my ground. I do not want to be that 28:58 story about the absentee landlord. That's just letting this asset yet, you know, he wrote it away and degraded. So, how do I involved? 29:08 yeah, so today I would say that the the contracts are with the Farmer, so the farmer is the one that is actually cont. 29:16 What we are starting to see are several landlords that are coming to their farmers and saying hey, have you seen this carbon program? Are you interested in doing XYZ carbon 29:25 program? We're also seen as far as going as being in part of their contracts, right? And so now you Damian would tell your your renter that they 29:34 are required to participate in this program. They're required to do a no-till or plant cover crops as part of it. And 29:40 you know, you may ask for a portion of that a portion of the carbon payment because ultimately if a farmer 29:49 is putting rented land into a carbon program, they should have the actual okay from the from the landowner. Yeah, and 29:58 also if it's them doing the practices, I have no problem with them making the money. It's just a matter of where do we split you 30:04 know, or let's face it probably gets passed on in case rent or something. Hey. You talked about Kelly and he's kind of at the Forefront of 30:13 all this does he have all of his Acres enrolled one half of his Acres enrolled. Do you know? 30:18 I don't actually I don't know for sure. I know I know it's not all of them. It doesn't have all of his acres and all okay answer me this if this keeps going 30:27 and we get more of our people like the extreme AG listeners like yeah, I like the idea of making twelve dollars an acre for some practices. 30:33 I'm gonna do or already am doing let's say on average. Is there enough widget Inc money? Is there enough Campbell Soup money out there to pay for all this? 30:45 Yeah, I yes definitely. Tell you that are you sitting on like a you're sitting on like a billion dollars right now trying to deploy it 30:54 these companies giving you. we are getting Our demand then there's probably going to be Supply from our Farmers. I can I can confidently say 31:09 you say that there's more you think there's not gonna be any the Money Train the Brinks truck is sitting there ready to pay for carbon 31:15 credits. I think there's a lot of organizations that are trying to figure out how they 31:21 can invest their money in scale the quickest and so obviously at your chair we feel like we're in a prime position to be able to do that backed by our 100 31:30 year old Cooperative of Linda lakes. Hmm when I was eight years old the first job, they gave the farm was feeding the baby the 31:38 bottle calves and so I would take a 50-pound bag of Land O'Lakes milk replacer and then scoop it out and and and mix it 31:47 up and put it in there. Yes, so, I mean it's not yours. Well, you know Purina is part of Land O'Lakes. Yeah, of course anyway, so and from from from milk replacer 31:57 to the bottle calves to carbon credits. One thing before we get out here the nitrogen thing I said we took we're gonna talk about C, which is really the more established thing because the 32:06 corporate widget letters widget makers seem to think carbon reduction, you know carbon footprint. Those are terms that have been hearing for at least a decade. What's the 32:15 in thing started here about nitrogen with Canada? So here about nitrogen and nitrates with the Netherlands when I hear nitrogen and nitrates, I think good God 32:24 and the Netherlands are gonna come and take my farm. Don't tell me we're going there. What's the deal? 32:30 No, but what we are noticing Damian is that the greenhouse gas accounting protocol. They are kind of evolving alongside 32:36 the carbon credit Market as well and what I mean by that is they are actually they're now coming forward and they're saying hey, you know for some 32:45 organizations it may make sense to actually invest in reductions. Okay. And so that would be like a one-time reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. And so they are saying 32:54 you know for for those of you that don't want to keep this on your books long-term, it may make sense to actually invest in 33:00 in this space Also. And so if you reduce your nitrogen you're going to be reducing the nitrous oxide, which is actually two to three 33:09 times more potent than then the greenhouse gas that you're getting from carbon, right? And so so with that but here's 33:19 the thing. I understand no till I understand reduce still I understand cover crops. How do I how 33:25 do I reduce nitrogen or nitrous oxide emissions or Trades other than useless nitrogen or use a nitrogen stabilizer. We've 33:36 been using Nitro stabilizers since like the 1970s or so. That shouldn't be a big deal some of you have but not everyone the actual nitrogen stabilizer usage would 33:45 probably surprise you if if we knew the actual percentage of nitrogen stabilizers that were being used. It's actually it's pretty low to be honest and in some 33:54 pockets of the world. It's it's extremely work. It's extremely low, you know, and so just even incorporating 34:00 a nitrogen stabilizer will naturally reduce some of that nitrous oxide, but you're exactly right. It's it's honestly as simple as cutting your nitrogen, you 34:09 know, we are saying by at a minimum five percent we would like to see 10% The good thing about a nitrogen reduction is that it is 34:19 a one-year contract. So it's a one and done. There is no reporting tale. So like with carbon you have to continue to report your data, even if you decide not 34:28 to renew with the In reduction credits, you actually are it's just a one call a one-time contract and then 34:36 you're done. Right? And so that is that is nice. It's also more flexible from that perspective. And the 34:42 best thing is that it it allows those Farmers that maybe have been long-term. No tillers long-term cover 34:48 croppers. They can actually participate because if they reduce their nitrogen, that's great. They're in they're good. And 34:54 what's my payment? You know, you used a good average and we're not holding it by accountable. You just said on average four tens 35:00 of a ton of carbon per acre is the national average at 30 bucks. That's 12 dollars an acre. Do I have a national average on nitrogen? 35:08 I don't have a good hard number for you yet. We are just going through our first pilot. So we started our pilot in basically we started in August. So basically fall 35:17 of 22 come March. I will have some better numbers on what we're actually anticipating that we will see early indications though do say that 35:26 if you add a stabilizer to your manure, then you are likely to get paid much more than just doing a nitrogen reduction. Okay, 35:35 I like it and I'm learning now. Let's talk about we talked about how a farmer can make money. And again, if you're an extreme AG listener, you're forward thinking you 35:44 want to make money you want to be doing right? And let's go there. What are the agronomic benefits? 35:50 We talk about some making some money. Can you give me can you give me the pitch on why I should do this if I'm a farm owner besides the average of 35:59 12 bucks an acre or maybe some Acres on now the new nitrogen programs are another incentive. 36:06 Yeah, I mean, I think it all goes back to soil Health right? I mean and I think that we've talked a lot about the the financial benefit 36:12 but the reality is beyond the financial benefit of all this and I think Kelly and and those that extreme AG are a great test case for this and they talk about it a 36:21 lot is building your soil profile and building. You know, that good quality aggregate stability that's going to help with water infiltration and the water holding capacity and 36:30 like all of those things that are going to in turn help create, you know, it's gonna minimize your risk and maximize your profits all through your soil Health, but then 36:39 you're also going to be eligible for these other ecosystem opportunities. And so for me, I would say that, you know, 36:45 it's really about the building blocks of soil and how you can how you can take these, you know, these pieces that are in our new social health assessment and look 36:54 at them and say, okay my Aggregates stability is really poor. I need to I need to do, you know something with 37:00 a deeper roots or something like that of a cover crop and really start beginning to build some of that. That from that standpoint. 37:10 You can be honest because you are honest. Is there a drawback is there? I mean other than I told you the I've heard the coffee shop criticism and I do have farmer buddies 37:19 all over this, you know North America and I think we all kind of see where this is, you know a new thing and there's a lot of there's some skepticism. 37:28 There's also just a lot of questions you've answered most of the questions. Is there any is there any reason is 37:34 any of this founded was there? You know, did we have people that got stuck? Is there anybody was there any is there any drawback that 37:40 I'm not thinking? Yeah, because it sounds like it's pretty much all pretty well, it's getting more cut and dried and it's getting more clear. There's there's 37:47 less vagory than their ones was there's already draw back. I'm not thinking of No, I mean. 38:00 Clear-cut. I don't really and I struggle with this myself because I hear Farmers often say I don't I don't want to put the time in 38:09 for the data or I don't want to do you know and and that to me maybe that's the only drawback but at the end 38:15 of the day I don't you know, I don't really see that as a drawback. Like if you can invest 10 hours to get a $50,000 38:21 check, you know for me, I don't I mean I don't I mean I make that kind of money obviously, but you know, I'm not 38:30 gonna see where for a little bit would be a big payoff. I'm not sure I could fool around I'm not gonna give you 10 hours for 50 Grand because 38:36 that's hardly worth my time, but for other people Of course if they were seeing again, what's that? I just don't see a drawback. I mean, yeah, 38:45 I just don't see a drawback. You're an Iowa girl, and and you've been around us for a while. And so I've talked to you about this a couple 38:54 of times. You're also a new sponsor of my business of Agriculture podcast. So I really appreciate you coming on board there because I do 39:00 think that this is the future we're gonna talk about that on my business of Agriculture podcast. So if you want to hear more about this go and look 39:06 up that over at the business of Eric culture in the meantime, if you want to learn more about this, it's very simple because there is no commitment. You 39:12 can go to True Tara tell him how to get there. Through taraag.com and there's going to be a survey link right at the front of the page and it's going to take you 30 seconds and 39:21 you'll be good to go. Pru t e r r a true Terra ag.com go and check it out. Learn more. If you want to learn more in 39:31 your member, Kelly Garrett is your go-to on this and also a couple of the other guys Temple and Matt miles 39:38 are getting into some of these ecosystem services and it's not through true Terra. I'm gonna you know full disclosure what I'm so nutrient one two Rabobank, but this is a 39:47 new thing that's happening. You're you know, you're gonna see more and more about it. Thanks for listening to this one because now you're educated and I'm sure 39:55 that Mariah would even lend herself, you know, if you had a question so you can go to go to Kelly go to Mariah and we appreciate listening this Mariah. Thanks 40:04 for being here. Thank you till next time I'm Damian Mason and this is extremax cutting the curve. That's a 40:10 wrap for this episode of cutting the curve, but there's plenty more check out extremead.com where you 40:16 can find past episodes instructional videos and articles to help you squeeze more profit out 40:22 of your farm cutting. 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