Farmer happy with carbon accreditation system
An intercontinental collaboration has been a game changer for one northern Alberta farmer who has reaped the benefits of an advanced carbon credit system.
Third-generation farmer Mackenzie Fingerhut of Fingerhut Farms in Fairview, Alta., has seen the benefits of a partnership between the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA) and Carbon Asset Solutions in Australia improve his farming practices in recent years.
Fingerhut Farms is a conventional grain operation producing small grains, oilseeds and pulses on 4,000 acres of land.
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He was looking for a more reliable carbon accreditation system and found it in Carbon Asset Solutions.
“In the past, they were just more or less paperwork and real benchmark modelling, and third-party auditing was taking most of the value of that carbon offset, and the farm wasn’t seeing much of that,” Fingerhut said.
The partnership represents a significant departure from traditional carbon credit systems, which historically relied on paperwork and modelling that often left farmers with minimal financial benefit.
Carbon Asset Solutions has developed a technology-driven approach using maintenance cards and gamma ray measurements to precisely track and quantify carbon sequestration in agricultural settings.
The new system aims to decentralize carbon credit measurement, providing farmers with a direct and transparent method of documenting their environmental impact. By using advanced technological measurements, the program can accurately assess carbon sequestration at a granular level, allowing farmers to be directly compensated for their land management practices.
Fingerhut has been able to implement new practices that have made positive impacts on his operation in northern Alberta.
He has made the change to no-till seeding systems, shifted his source of sulphur to elemental and compost sulphur-blended products to reduce synthetic input load and made other small changes to soil amendments to balance nitrogen and other minerals in his soil.
He said the changes have made visible improvements to the health of his soil.
“I’m seeing a better, more consistent establishment from doing no-till. We are getting better soil aggregation because we’re not basically powdering it with every extra pass. So we’re seeing better germination from that,” Fingerhut said.
“We’re not seeing the big, dramatic one per cent per year type of thing. But we are seeing a consistent increase in organic matter, which in turn helps weather drought conditions, and it does supply quite a bit of ‘free’ nutrients. But those are nutrients from prior crops that we’re seeing better release rates on, and the big one in that release rate is your nitrogen.”
The partnership provides farmers with a clear incentive structure. By making smaller, measurable changes in farming practices, agricultural operations can now quantify and monetize their environmental contributions. This approach differs from more extreme regenerative farming models by allowing conventional farmers to make incremental improvements while still seeing tangible benefits.
Fingerhut learned about the opportunity to work with Carbon Asset Solutions through a connection at his alma mater, Olds College. He said it has been quite a process, but it is one he would recommend to other farmers.
“Sustaining the productivity of our land was my main focus, and ensuring that we are always continually building and not depleting our soil and continuing to grow better crops with what we’ve got there. And being able to qualify the carbon has been a big motivating factor to do this,” he said.
“In my mind, farmers will still keep growing the crops that they’re going to grow. But if there’s slightly better ways we can do that — to increase your organic matter, which inevitably opens up your bottom line a little bit, and if you can get kind of a top-up compensation for any carbon use sequestering — it’s kind of a win-win situation.”
Fingerhut added that the key to the program’s success is the emphasis on detailed record-keeping. Farmers must maintain comprehensive data going back several years to establish baseline reports and track changes in carbon sequestration. This requirement ensures transparency and scientific rigor in the carbon credit process.
The IICA is hosting the 2025 Americas Agriculture and Food Security Forum at Olds College on June 16-17, where Fingerhut and representatives from Carbon Asset Solutions will speak on the impacts the carbon accreditation program has had on operations such as Fingerhut Farms.
Source: producer.com