November & December 2024 ESMC Newsletter
Our Work in 2024
Thank you all for your participation and support in 2024. It’s been a full year for us at ESMC and our members, partners, board, team and community support has allowed us to achieve many goals. The following updates highlight a sampling of accomplishments.
Expanding our Team, our Board, and Member Organizations
In 2024, we brought in many new team members and welcomed long-time COO Alana Pacheco as our new Executive Director. Alana is stepping into the role as Debbie Reed retires. We had six new board members join and brought in new organizational members from across the agricultural supply chain.
Enabling Member and Buyer Co-Investment
Our Eco-Harvest platform is unique. By allowing multiple partners to co-invest in projects, we ensure that every contribution towards sustainability is acknowledged and valued. This year we designed and implemented some of the industry’s first Scope 3 co-investment partnerships between manufacturers and retailers. We highlighted one example of this partnership in a recent announcement with General Mills and Ahold Delhaize.
Expanding Opportunities for Eco-Harvest Projects and Ensuring Scientific Rigor of Outcomes
Through Eco-Harvest, we continued project refinement and expansion through 15 projects across the U.S. and Canda. We launched grazing projects using SNAPGraze, a model to simulate grazing practices such as rotational grazing, matching stocking density, prescribed burning, or grazing cropland. We also started dairy projects using RuFaS, a whole-farm model to simulate dairy farms.
We verified our 2023 projects – speeding up the verification timeline so producers are paid more quickly. We also ensured that our protocols aligned to new guidance from the Greenhouse Gas Protocol all while simplifying our ESMC Cropland Protocol. We look forward to sharing 2024 project outcomes in spring 2025.
Increasing Data Automation, Accuracy and Security: Technology and Research Updates
Our technology team and research arm, ESMRC, had a full scope of activities in 2024 – with the end goal of increasing project efficiency and integrity while reducing overall cost and time.
- Expanded MMRV Capabilities: Part of our verification process includes an in-depth review of Eco-Harvest’s underlying digital architecture, including the end-to-end data flow and our measurement, monitoring, reporting, and verification (MMRV) system. In 2024, our team expanded our MMRV capabilities by building MMRV data integration and automation for enhanced ecological modeling, including the Ecosys biogeochemical model and the EPA Pollutant Loading Estimation Tool (PLET). The Eco-Harvest team responded to project needs to increase project efficiency and reduce data entry burdens – as an example, ESMC built API integration to automate machine data transfer from the tractor cab directly into the MMRV through our work with AGI.
- Upgraded Stratification Approach: In collaboration with EarthOptics, ESMRC transitioned from field-level to project-level stratification, reducing sampling density from 1 per 4 acres to 1 per 40–50 acres while enhancing scientific rigor and efficiency. Further refinements are planned for 2025 to reduce field labor.
- Data Insights & Modeling: Collaborations with NASA Acres and the University of Maryland have provided deep insights into years of data, revealing the impacts of practice changes across geographies. Advanced modeling techniques, such as Generalized Additive Models (GAMs), have demonstrated powerful capabilities in analyzing soil organic carbon and yield relationships.
- Valuing Biodiversity: ESMRC is in the process of identifying criteria for a biodiversity quantification including below-ground and edge-of-field impacts to integrate biodiversity into ecosystem service evaluations and expand opportunities for producers in Eco-Harvest projects.
- Enhanced Technical Working Groups: In 2024, the Technical Working Groups became a vital hub for open scientific exchange, fueling innovation and progress across the ESMC program. In 2025, we’re building on this success with revamped quarterly sessions that will feature expert-led discussions, actionable insights, and a sharper focus on driving program impact and advancing scientific breakthroughs.
Our Manager for Member Engagement & Equity grew our IRJ program by participating in a number of events with partners and members such as a NYC Climate Week event with Forum for the Future & Sustain Our Future Foundation. We launched a Restorative Justice Ambassador program with partner National Association of Conservation Districts and developed trainings targeting historically underserved producers to increase participation in agricultural carbon and ecosystem services markets.Highlighting Opportunities through Policy Engagement
We relaunched our policy working group after a two-year hiatus, bringing ESMC’s voice back to Washington, DC. As part of our increased policy engagement, we worked with USDA on implementation of the Growing Climate Solutions Act and SUSTAINS Act, two critical pieces of legislation that bring USDA support into the ecosystem services and voluntary carbon markets sector. And as we wind down 2024 and look to 2025, we are preparing ESMC for a new Administration, a new Congress, and working to ensure our sector is well prepared for new opportunities with this change.
ESMC Welcomes Bob Lawrence as a Board Member
Our expanding board continues to grow! We are pleased to welcome Bob Lawrence to the board. Bob is a retired environmental lawyer who worked at major international law firms for over 40 years and has provided legal support to ESMC since its inception. His career included work for half of the Fortune 500 companies, most major international banks and large-scale developers of renewable energy projects, including wind, solar and bioenergy. For the ten years immediately preceding his retirement in 2024, he worked primarily on financing renewable energy projects and arranging purchases and sales of environmental benefits in carbon markets.
“I look forward to serving on ESMC’s Board to contribute to its continuing success and advancing the opportunities for carbon emissions reductions in the agricultural space.”
ESMC in the News
Can You Still Bank on Carbon Opportunities?
Ag Web (December 5)
Five years after their introduction, carbon offset markets have evolved, and some have disappeared. ESMC’s Eco-Harvest program is highlighted as one Scope 3 market program that continues to evolve and grow. Read the full article.
ESMC’s Program Manager Laura Shutack and AGI’s Ethan Merck were interviewed by Jesse Allen on an Agriculture of America radio show and podcast. They discussed the role AGI Farmobile technology plays in helping farmers to automatically collect field-level data needed for Eco-Harvest projects. Listen to the interview here.
Recent Member and Funder News
Campbell’s Launches Regenerative Agriculture Pilot for Potatoes with Grocer Ahold Delhaize
Agriculture Dive (December 10)
Ahold Delhaize has worked with some of the largest food companies to transform supply chains for well-known brands. The pilot with Campbells is Ahold Delhaize’s third partnership with a major CPG to accelerate regenerative agriculture practices in food supply chains, adding to pilots with Kellanova and General Mills (an ESMC funder and member) announced earlier this year. The partnerships are a unique effort to reduce emissions across the food value chain while expanding consumer knowledge around regenerative agriculture. While Ahold Delhaize’s previous partnerships largely centered around wheat, the pilot with Campbell’s is unique in that it focuses on potatoes. Participating farms will work to improve nutrient management and implement practices such as cover cropping, compost application and conversion of farm equipment to renewable energy sources, according to a release. Read the full announcement.
Announcing Release of the US Ag and Forestry GHG Inventory Data Viewer
USDA (November 21)
USDA recently announced the launch of the Agriculture and Forestry Greenhouse Gas Data Viewer, an innovative and interactive tool displaying the most recent data on greenhouse gas emissions and sinks for the agriculture and forestry sectors. The Data Viewer offers a deep dive into EPA’s Inventory of U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks (the Inventory), with a focus on agriculture, forestry, land-use and land-use change (LULUC), and on-farm energy use. USDA is an ESMC funder.
FFAR & Danone North America Announce Grant Opportunity to Support Regenerative Agriculture
Foundation for Food & Agriculture Research (FFAR) (November 20)
FFAR and Danone North America will grant up to two awards between $225,000 and $450,000 under a new funding opportunity, Understanding Impacts of Hub Farm Resources in Expanding Adoption of Regenerative Agriculture Practices. This opportunity seeks to promote the use of regenerative practices by understanding the impact hub farms – cooperative locations to share resources and best practices – can have on adopting these practices. Proposals are due by February 5, 2025. FFAR is an ESMC funder and Danone is an ESMC member. Read the full announcement.
Black Farmers in America, with Seanicaa Edwards Herron
Resources.org (November 12)
In this episode, host Margaret Walls spoke with Seanicaa Edwards Herron, founder and executive director of the Freedmen Heirs Foundation (an ESMC member), about challenges facing Black farmers in the United States. Herron discussed historical and systemic barriers that Black farmers have encountered, and continue to encounter, in the US agricultural industry. Their conversation covered access to land, capital, and markets; the importance of government programs that are tailored to support Black farmers; and the mission of the Freedmen Heirs Foundation to bridge gaps in the agricultural industry between Black farmers and the markets that Black farmers tap to sell their products. Read the article and listen to the interview.
Grassland and Other Conservation Projects in SD Receive $83 Million Federal Boost
South Dakota Searchlight (November 4)
Six projects in South Dakota will receive a combined $83 million in grants from the federal government for grassland conservation and climate-smart agricultural practices, according to a recent announcement by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The biggest award in South Dakota is $24 million to Pheasants Forever and Quail Forever (both ESMC members). Their project will fight the encroachment of eastern redcedar on grasslands by using prescribed fire to target the trees and by planting prairie grasses. Read the full article.
Other News of Note
Kiss the Ground Announces $500K in Direct-to-Farmer Grants
Global News Wire (November 21)
A leading voice promoting regenerative agriculture and healthy soil since 2013, Kiss the Ground is bridging the gap between food production and consumption with farmer stories. Read the full grant announcement.
Supplier Assistance Programs Get Growers on Board for Sustainability
World Grain (November 18)
Many consumers continue to seek sustainably sourced products. Farmers often want to follow sustainable practices such as water conservation and regenerative agriculture but may need financial assistance to do so. That’s where ingredient suppliers and food companies are stepping in. Proprietary research from Ardent Mills, based in Denver, Colorado, US, found that consumers are becoming aware of sustainability practices and terms such as water conservation (53%), soil health (51%), ethical ingredient sourcing (50%), carbon neutrality (45%), regenerative agriculture (38%) and Fair Trade (34%). Read the full article.
Climate Change Will Cost Montana Agriculture More Than 9,000 Job Losses, $181M, Report Says
Daily Montanan (November 15)
Cattle, grain industries will be hard hit, while new opportunities could help lessen the impact of a changing climate. Read the full article.
How U.S. Agriculture Can Win the Greenhouse Gas Battle
Capital Press (November 14)
A comprehensive analysis by an independent group of 26 scientists and researchers has found U.S. agriculture has the potential to more than offset its carbon footprint through current conservation practices and emerging technologies — while increasing farmer profitability. The group’s findings have just been released in a new report, “The Potential for U.S. Agriculture to Be Greenhouse Gas Negative,” initiated by U.S. Farmers and Ranchers in Action. Read the full article.
