Fertilizer company offering carbon control plan

Fertilizer producer Nutrien Ltd. is launching a farm carbon program that it says will provide “end-to-end support” to drive improved environmental sustainability and boost profits for farmers.

The company says it plans to use its role as the world’s largest provider of crop inputs and services to help growers plan, plant and track practices to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, trap and store carbon and measure the resulting improvements.

It says it will then help farmers make money from their environmental efforts by facilitating the purchase and sale of carbon credits.

Nutrien is to pilot the new carbon program across North America in 2021 and later take it to South America and Australia.

The company says demand for carbon credits has more than doubled since 2017, citing a recent state of voluntary carbon markets report from Ecosystem Marketplace.

It says the global market for carbon offsets is expected to increase by 40 to 100 times by 2050 as companies that produce carbon emissions linked to global warming look for ways to offset rising carbon taxes.

“Carbon has the potential to become a substantial economy that will go a long way towards realizing net-zero agriculture,” Nutrien CEO Chuck Magro said in a statement.

“Our program is an important first step towards this journey. Our direct relationship with our grower customers will help them to be early movers in this space and see financial value from farming sustainably.”

Nutrien was one of the first users of the Alberta Carbon Trunk Line, a carbon capture and storage project that collects carbon dioxide from its fertilizer plant northeast of Edmonton and transports it to mature oil and gas reservoirs for use in enhanced oil recovery and storage.