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The Issue
Agricultural soils are a large land-based sink for atmospheric carbon with additional potential to contribute to the sequestration of atmospheric carbon, though questions still remain as to the magnitude and rate of this mitigation opportunity. This potential has spurred a desire to connect growers with carbon markets to realize the environmental and economic value of agricultural practices. Concurrently, the markets are facing increasing scrutiny as well, given the evolving science, the necessity of mitigating our climate impact, and increasing public interest. For market providers to effectively and efficiently advocate for their shared interests, it has become imperative to identify and communicate about what, among the current and potential approaches, merits pre-competitive standardization and what public policies and programs should be in place to appropriately support the viability and competitiveness of these marketplaces.
About the Collaborative
The Agricultural Climate Markets Collaborative is a voluntary group facilitated by the Keystone Policy Center to identify collective, precompetitive actions that could create more transparency and build trust in the marketplace; provide more coordinated and consistent feedback to protocol bodies, USDA, and others; and ultimately contribute to a clearer marketplace that can scale towards meaningful impact.
Principles for Transparency
The first step that the Collaborative has taken is to create a set of voluntary precompetitive principles for transparency for carbon sequestration, greenhouse gas emissions reductions, and ecosystem service credit program developers, and corporations with supply chain sustainability programs. The Collaborative hopes the principles unveiled today helps scale market-based climate solutions for agriculture by keeping both growers and buyers informed on each of the following:
- Farm and entity eligibility for programs
- Contract obligations for program participants
- Asset types generated by a program
- Standards used by the program developer
- Data required from program participants
- Models used to generate credits
- Ownership and transferability of the credits generated
- Program participant financial obligations and payments
- Data ownership and privacy
- Contractual implications of noncompliance and acts of God
- Required relationship between program developer and participant
Click here to read the detailed principles and issue explanations. The Collaborative will continue to address issues and challenges specific to applying market-based approaches to climate change mitigation in the agricultural context – with the intention to engage with stakeholders such as growers, carbon registries, supply chain companies, and the USDA.
Questions for Growers to Ask Program Providers
The first goal of the Principles for Transparency is to give growers who participate in voluntary contractual programs that pay for ecosystem services, such as climate markets, easy access to the information they need to determine which program is right for them. The following questions correspond to the principles, and program developers who have signed onto the principles should be able to answer them.
As a grower, I want to know…
- Can I participate in your program given my location, production system, land ownership status, and the other programs I am involved in?
- What will be the duration of my contract? Is it transferable, and what happens if I cannot entirely fulfill it?
- How will my actions translate into credits or claims and for which ecosystem services?
- How do I know the accounting, reporting, and verification standards used to generate credits or claims are credible?
- What data will be required of me to participate, and how will it be collected? How much of my time will it take to do so?
- Who will own the ecosystem value created by my actions, and is it transferrable?
- What will I need to pay, and what payments will be due to me? How will the value of the claims or credits I make translate to the payment I receive, and is there any uncertainty in those amounts given the models and protocols your program uses?
- Who owns my data, and how will it be kept private? Does this program follow Ag Data Transparent principles?
- How will my contract account for events outside of my control, such as extreme weather and other risks?
- Is anything else required of me to participate in this contract? Are any customer, membership, or other relationship requirements attached to it?
Endorsements
The following organizations endorse the principles as best practice for the program developers of agricultural climate markets.
- American Farmland Trust
- Bayer
- Corteva
- Ecosystem Services Market Consortium
- Indigo Ag
- Nutrien
- Regrow Ag
- Soil and Water Outcomes Fund
- The Nature Conservancy
- Truterra
The following organizations contributed to the development of these principles.
- EDF
- Farmers Business Network
- Field to Market
- Strategic Conservation Solutions
If your organization would like to endorse these principles, please email Jonathan Geurts at jgeurts@keystone.org.
Listen
Learn more about the Agricultural Climate Markets Collaborative by listening to the following episode of the Keynotes podcast.
Effective March 1, 2025, Thomas J. Vilsack, former United States Secretary of Agriculture and Governor of Iowa, became the first Chief Executive Officer for the World Food Prize Foundation. In this new role, Governor Vilsack is focusing on expanding the Foundation’s global network, and will further position the Foundation as a leader in addressing global food and nutrition insecurity, continuing his lifetime of public service.
Shelby Coffey III is a distinguished journalist, media executive, and thought leader whose career has helped shape the landscape of American news and public discourse. Over several decades, Coffey has held some of the most influential roles in journalism, including serving as editor of the Los Angeles Times, executive vice president of ABC News, and deputy managing editor of The Washington Post. His editorial leadership extended to key roles as president of CNN Financial News, editor of the Dallas Times Herald, and U.S. News & World Report.
Jerry Steiner has spent 40 years involved in agriculture following growing up on a Wisconsin dairy farm. He began his career with Monsanto, in multiple business leadership roles. From 2003-2013 he served as a member of the Executive team, as the company’s Executive Vice President of Sustainability and Corporate Affairs. He led the company’s global Government, Public and Industry Affairs teams across the 70 countries where Monsanto conducts business. This experience got Jerry connected to the Keystones centers work in agriculture. Key among his responsibilities were shaping the company’s public policy and building partnerships aimed at helping farmers around the world produce more food, while conserving valuable resources like water and energy. Two unique partnership that developed under his leadership were drought tolerant corn with 5 African countries, CIMMYT and the Gates foundation, and a building a sustainable business model in Brazil with the value chain leading to significant multi-company investment and soybean varieties that can protected themselves.
Jennifer Morris is the Chief Executive Officer of The Nature Conservancy, leading a team of nearly 6,000 staff working in more than 80 countries and territories tackling the dual crises of the 
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