ESMC Collaboration with NACD on Agricultural Carbon and Ecosystem Services Market Development
In 2024 & 2025, ESMC collaborated with the National Association of Conservation Districts (NACD) on a US Department of Agriculture (USDA) Climate Smart Commodities project entitled: Strengthening Grassroots Leadership & Capacity to Scale Climate-Smart Systems and Facilitate Historically Underserved Producers’ Access to Markets. There were two main components of ESMC’s work on this project.
Training and Materials Development
ESMC conducted a series of trainings (both in-person and virtual) for conservation district staff and their partners available below.
April 2025: HabiTerre Introduction/Overview: Modeling Deep Dive for Eco-Harvest Projects
- Presentation Recording (PW: g#TvnS92)
September 2024: Lessons Learned from Conducting Ecosystem Services Projects
June 2024: Carbon and Ecosystem Services Markets for Agriculture: An Overview
2-Pagers and Informational Graphics
- Agricultural Carbon and Ecosystem Services Markets: An Overview
- Agriculture and Greenhouse Gas Emissions
- ESMC and Eco-Harvest: An Overview
- Scope 1 vs Scope 3: An Explainer
Restorative Justice
Additionally, ESMC is led a project component, Restorative Justice Frameworks Programming. ESMC’s work focused on the following activities:
- Advancing NACD’s environmental justice goals
- Mitigating barriers to entry faced by historically underserved producers
- Partnering with conservation district staff to recruit regional ambassadors from underserved producer communities
- Assessing community needs and barriers to participation, adjusting programs and developing pilots to mitigate or eliminate such barriers
- Developing strategies for attracting and engaging underserved producers
