The Ecosystem Services Market Consortium (ESMC) and the Foundation for Food & Agriculture Research (FFAR) announce the launch of ESMC’s ecosystem services market program, Eco-Harvest.

This program rewards producers for beneficial environmental outcomes from regenerative agriculture. ESMC generates and sells credits for increased soil carbon, reduced greenhouse gases and improved water quality from agricultural production systems. Eco-Harvest’s outcomes-based program generates  credits for corporate agricultural supply chain partners in the US.

ESMC’s supply chain and public-private partnership business model allows for member co-investment and cooperation at scale, while recognizing and rewarding producers for the public benefits resulting from environmental stewardship on private lands.

In 2019, ESMC received a grant of $10.3 million from FFAR for the research needed to develop this market program. ESMC and its members matched the grant to fund research and development projects and programming in the public-private partnership for a total investment of $20.6 million.

This launch signifies the readiness of ESMC’s Eco-Harvest market program, which is an end-to-end digitized and advanced technology program and platform to generate high quality, third-party verified credits for soil carbon removals, avoided and reduced greenhouse gases and water impacts from US farms.

With the program launch, ESMC is targeting up to 500,000 acres for enrollment. Current Eco-Harvest market program regions include the Midwest Corn and Soy Belt, the Northern Great Plains, the Southern Great Plains and the Great Lakes regions. Production systems included in launch include corn, soy, wheat and alfalfa cropping systems. Producers pay no fees and do not have to purchase subscriptions or inputs to participate.

More information is available online.

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