Iowa Farm Bureau expands carbon credit trading efforts

WEST DES MOINES, Iowa – Iowa Farm Bureau Federation has launched a new, wholly owned subsidiary to expand its carbon aggregation program.
Ready. AgraGate Climate Credits Corporation (CCX) stands ready to capture the nation’s rapidly expanding market for agriculture’s carbon credits.
Leading the new company is Dave Krog, who serves as chief executive officer.
Farm Bureau has been involved in the environmental credits arena since 1997 and began its carbon offsets aggregation program in 2003.
Through June 2007, AgraGate had registered more than a million acres of land producing carbon credits from farmers, ranchers and forest owners in 16 states, from South Carolina to Colorado and from Texas to Minnesota. It has contracts with forest owners in seven states and has registered seven methane projects from dairy and swine farms.
Sequestering, or holding, carbon in the soil helps reduce carbon dioxide, one of several greenhouse gases that contribute to the warming of the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide can be stored in the soil through no-till planting, restoring wetlands, converting cropland to permanent grass or trees, planting conservation buffers and using cover crops.
The carbon stored in the soil creates an offset, or credit, that can be sold on the CCX.