Commentary by Brenda Tjaden

Next weekend I'm heading to Minneapolis for Climate Reality Training Corps where this topic is going to be discussed and analyzed by some of North America's leading thinkers on climate change and drawdown initiatives. If you're interested, watch the movie 'An Inconvenient Sequel' on Netflix to get a sense as to how the Climate Reality Project is working to hone in on specific regions of the world and the issues each is facing, and how people and organizations can approach regional solutions to the climate crisis. One of the focuses in Minneapolis is going to be on agriculture: both the problem, and the solution. 

By now most people have probably heard that Indigo Ag together with the Rodale Institute is offering financial incentives for carbon sequestration through regenerative soil management (see https://www.indigoag.com/the-terraton-initiative). This takes us way beyond the 'what is regenerative' discussion, which thus far has seemed content to agree that it involves shared ecological principles, continuous improvement, lower input costs, better water management and an un-quantifiable trust in nature. Now that there's big money involved, up comes the question as to how improved soil health and carbon-capture will be quantified and compensated. With climate science advancing at a rapid rate, and track-and-trace systems costs dropping rapidly, there's going to emerge a protocol.

My guess is that the matter (pardon the pun) of quantifying carbon drawdown in soils is going to turn into a massive challenge. There are some deeply entrenched stakeholder views about soil sampling, ranging all the way from 'why bother' to near-religious convictions about this or that lab, it's philosophy and goals around fertility, testing technology, etc., etc. Then there's the sampling methodology debate, which comes with a number of deep commercial investments already made in the surrounding technology, agronomy and infrastructure.

Meanwhile, outside of western Canadian conventional agriculture circles, the topics of carbon drawdown and regenerative soil management practices - and the myriad investment opportunities, technological advances, food safety and environmental impacts involved - are fast taking over all other issues in farming and food. A measurement protocol to protect the integrity of investments and financial incentives will be a key to closing the loop between public opinion, service providers and landowners in managing the changes underway.