• Sign In
  • impact giving
  • magazines
  • Resource Directory
  • connect
  • funds
  • donate
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of Use
  • impact giving
  • magazines
  • Resource Directory
  • connect
  • funds
  • donate
  • Sign Up
  • Sign In
  • Sign Up
  • Sign In

A Marketplace to Incentivize Farmers to Fight Climate Change

Fast Company Jul 8, 2019
This article is deemed a must-read by one or more of our expert collaborators.
Click here for more.
A Marketplace to Incentivize Farmers to Fight Climate Change Giving Compass
  •  Share
  •  Save
Share

Giving Compass’ Take:

• Indigo, a tech agriculture company that focuses on sustainable farming solutions, is incentivizing farmers to manage their soil by getting companies to pay for farmer’s carbon offsets. 

• How can donors support farmers in fighting climate change?  What are the potential mutual benefits of this model? 

• Read about how practices such as agroforestry can help address climate change. 


One of the biggest solutions for the climate isn’t as obvious as wind power or electric cars. But if farmers make changes to the way they manage soil on farms—and that happened on farmland globally—it could theoretically suck a trillion tons of CO2 from the atmosphere, or as much as humans have emitted since the Industrial Revolution.

The changes aren’t particularly complicated, and involve things like rotating crops, planting cover crops, and avoiding tilling the soil. These “regenerative agriculture” techniques also aren’t new, though they became less common with the advent of modern agriculture, as techniques like plowing released carbon that had been stored in the ground. To go back, a new marketplace called Indigo is trying to incentivize farmers by connecting them with companies and others who want to pay for carbon offsets.

“What we’re talking about is the most hopeful thing I know about with regard to climate change,” says David Perry, CEO of Indigo Agriculture, a company that develops tech to improve sustainability on farms (and one of Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies) and which developed’s the new marketplace, called Indigo Carbon. “Almost everything that’s talked about with regard to climate is in the millions of tons [of carbon removal], or the largest initiative might be a gigaton.

There are challenges to making a marketplace like this work, beginning with the fact that it’s currently time-consuming to measure how much carbon content is actually in the soil on a farm. Indigo will use both soil sampling and modeling to measure carbon, though it’s actively working on new techniques that can help scale the process up faster, including analysis of satellite images.

The company will have to continue monitoring the soil over a period of years, since carbon levels will continue to change. Farmers are only paid based on the amount of carbon that Indigo calculates has been captured.

Read the full article about paying farmers to fight climate change by Adele Peters at Fast Company.

  •  Share
  •  Save
Share

Climate is a complex topic, and others found these selections from the Impact Giving archive from Giving Compass to be good resources.

  • This article is deemed a must-read by one or more of our expert collaborators.
    Click here for more.
    Investing in Forest Restoration

    More than three dozen governments around the world have committed to restoring more than 150 million hectares of land by 2020. That’s an area bigger than South Africa. By 2030, that commitment rises to 350 million hectares. Forests are losing a net 3.3 million hectares (an area the size of Taiwan) every year. Reversing these trends, according to an October report from Nature Conservancy and World Resources Institute, can deliver more than one-third of the emission reductions necessary to keep global warming under two degrees Celsius, the goal of the Paris climate accord. Hundreds of businesses and investors are jumping on this opportunity, according to a new report from Nature Conservancy and World Resources Institute. A few examples: Dutch firm Land Life Company, whose patented product enables trees to grow in dry and degraded land, are using technology to lower the costs and boost the efficiency of restoration. Guayakí, which sells drinks made with restored Atlantic rainforest-grown yerba mate, are sourcing materials from restorative activities. Fresh Coast Capital, which wonMorgan Stanley’s Sustainable Investing Challenge in 2014 Project managers like New Forests, which manages sustainable timber plantations and other conservation investments, are managing and harvesting trees on the degraded land. Read the full article about investing in forests by Dennis Price at ImpactAlpha. 


Are you ready to give?

Climate is an important topic. Other members found these Giving Funds, Charitable Organizations and Projects aggregated by Giving Compass to be relevant to individuals with a passion for Climate.

Loading...
Learn More
Connect

Loading...

Loading...

Learn More
Take Action

Loading...

Loading...

Loading...

Learn More
Related Stories
  • This article is deemed a must-read by one or more of our expert collaborators.
    Click here for more.
    Climate Change: The Consequences of Arctic Warming
  • This article is deemed a must-read by one or more of our expert collaborators.
    Click here for more.
    Local Leaders Dedicated to Climate Protection
  • This article is deemed a must-read by one or more of our expert collaborators.
    Click here for more.
    Climate Strategy: Girls’ Education
Newsletter

Become a newsletter subscriber to stay up-to-date on the latest Giving Compass news.

ABOUT GIVING COMPASS

Giving Compass is a nonprofit organization aggregating quality philanthropic content and resources to make it easier to give with impact.
Learn more

MORE INFO
  • CONTACT US
  • PARTNER WITH US
  • CONTENT AT GIVING COMPASS
  • PRIVACY
  • USER AGREEMENT
FOLLOW GIVING COMPASS
  • IN THE NEWS
  • FACEBOOK
  • TWITTER
  • LINKEDIN
Trending Issues
  • Environment
  • Homelessness
  • STEM Education
  • Equal Pay Act
  • Gender Equality

 

2019 © Giving Compass, LLC.

Sign in

Your personal information is confidential at Giving Compass. For more information, please visit our privacy policy. By signing up, you agree to our terms of use.