Carbon credit pilot project meetings scheduled for February

Kansas landowners and agricultural producers will soon have the opportunity to enter the marketplace for carbon credits. A series of local educational meetings has been scheduled in February in more than a dozen counties to discuss a voluntary pilot program for carbon credits on land either under conservation tillage or that was established in grass on or after Jan. 1, 1999.

Carbon sequestration is a way of recapturing carbon dioxide that has been released into the atmosphere. It involves producing as much plant material as possible and recycling plant residues back into the soil to accumulate as organic matter, according to Chuck Rice, Kansas State University professor of agronomy and national director of the Consortium for Agricultural Soils Mitigation of Greenhouse Gases (CASMGS). The more the organic matter in the soil, the more carbon is stored in the soil and the less there is in the atmosphere. Higher carbon levels in the soil cause no environmental problems.

The meetings are sponsored by the Kansas Coalition for Carbon Management, an organization consisting of K-State Research and Extension, Kansas Resource Conservation and Development Councils (RC&Ds), Kansas Farm Bureau, and numerous Kansas commodity organizations and state and federal agricultural agencies.

The pilot project is being offered by the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX), a voluntary, multi-sector market for reducing and trading greenhouse gas emissions. The program is administered by the Iowa Farm Bureau, serving as the "aggregator" -- an entity that acts as a middleman between the CCX and producers and landowners. An aggregator pools separate parcels of qualified acreage into one large block for purposes of carbon credit trading on the CCX.

"We'll explain what carbon sequestration is, why it's important, and how it can help reduce greenhouse gases in the atmosphere while improving soil and water quality. We'll also explain what practices producers can use to increase carbon sequestration in their soils," Rice said.

RC&D personnel will explain the pilot program being offered by CCX and administered by the Iowa Farm Bureau. In this program, producers or landowners can apply to contract with the Iowa Farm Bureau to sell carbon credits for them on the CCX exchange. The acreage eligible for this program includes conservation tillage (no-till, strip-till, and ridge-till) and grass plantings made on or after Jan. 1, 1999, which would mostly be Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), Conservation Security Program (CSP), or conservation buffer strip plantings in the eastern half of Kansas. In the western half of Kansas, only recent grass plantings are eligible.

Requirements that need to be met by those signing contracts will be explained by RC&D officials at the meetings. Payments for carbon credits are not established in the contract, said David Miller, Iowa Farm Bureau director of commodity services. The payment will depend on the price on the CCX board at the time the credits are sold by Miller. Payments have averaged from $0.50 to $1.00 per acre per year, but the figure fluctuates. A maximum of about 150,000 acres can still be contracted in this pilot project between now and April, 2005. More than 80,000 acres are already under contract in Iowa.

The 2005 meetings and RC&D telephone contact numbers are:

* Feb.16, 10:30 a.m. Chanute - Alliance Room, Memorial Auditorium, 101 S. Lincoln. 620-431-6180.

* Feb.16, 10 a.m. Manhattan - Pottorf Hall, Kimball & Avery St. 620- 273-6321.

* Feb.17, 10 a.m. El Dorado - Butler County Community Building, 200 N. Griffith. 620-273-6321.

* Feb.17, 1:30 p.m. Emporia - Lyon County Extension Office, 618 Commercial St. 620-273-6321.

* Feb. 22, 1:30 p.m. Hays - Kansas Highway Patrol Meeting Room, 1821 Frontier Rd. 785-425-6647.

* Feb. 22, 1:30 p.m. Marysville - City Hall, 209 N. 8th. 785-945- 6292.

* Feb. 22, 7 p.m. Colby - Thomas County Office Conference Room, 350 S. Range. 785-462-2602.

* Feb. 22, 7 p.m. Hiawatha - Fisher Center, 201 E. Iowa. 785-945- 6292.

* Feb. 23, 1:30 p.m. Garden City -K-State Research & Extension Center, 4500 E Mary St. 620-355-4091.

* Feb. 23, 1:30 p.m. Valley Falls - Delaware Township Hall, Broadway & Walnut. 785-945-6292.

* Feb. 24, 11 a.m. Ottawa - Franklin County Annex Meeting Room, 1418 S. Main. 785-242-2073.

* Feb. 28, 7 p.m. Concordia - Cloud Co. Community College, 2221 Campus Dr. 785-392-3393.


K-State Research and Extension is a short name for the Kansas State University Agricultural Experiment Station and Cooperative Extension Service, a program designed to generate and distribute useful knowledge for the well-being of Kansans. Supported by county, state, federal and private funds, the program has county Extension offices, experiment fields, area Extension offices and regional research centers statewide. Its headquarters is on the K-State campus in Manhattan.