When a group of farmers in eastern Arkansas hired Ryan Moore to handle their data management several years ago, the idea was that he could help them reduce costs and make their operations more efficient.

They couldn’t foresee that Moore, the owner of M&M Ag Consulting LLC, in Little Rock, Ark., would help them find another revenue source and some encouragement when agriculture was going through difficult times.

But Moore put them in contact with AgriCapture, a Tennessee-based company that recently announced the sale of 30,000 “high integrity methane emission credits” through a landmark deal in climate-smart agriculture. The purchase is part of the largest rice methane reduction project in U.S. history.

“Working with AgriCapture added a significant amount of money to our rice income this year,” said Gavin Sullivan, a fifth-generation rice farmer from Burdette, Ark. “If we can continue to do that and, hopefully, sell a high-dollar carbon credit, it could make a big difference in the years ahead.”

Rice prices

Sullivan, who farms about 11,000 acres with his father, Scott Sullivan, says rice prices above $7 a bushel for the last two years have been good for producers. He’s seen prices average closer to $5 and $6 a bushel during the 11 years he’s been farming.

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“I foresee us going back to $5 rice at some point, and selling a $100 carbon credit would help offset that,” he said. “I may be wrong, but that's how I think we will come up with the extra income to keep the ball rolling.

“Carbon credits help us adopt sustainable practices that require higher investment, and this project allows us to do so in a way that works for our operation. The sale of these credits provides an economic return for being better stewards of our rice farm.

Flooded rice fields emit methane, a potent greenhouse gas with a global warming potential 81 times greater than carbon dioxide over 20 years, according to AgriCapture’s announcement of the sale. With methane accounting for one-third of global warming, reducing emissions is essential for climate change mitigation.

“Our goal at AgriCapture is to lead the way in creating scalable, market-based solutions that help farmers improve the environmental and economic sustainability of their operation,” said AgriCapture President Tyler Hull. “We’re seeing increased demand for buyers as we demonstrate the high return on investment and impact associated with methane reduction.”

Credits generated

AgriCapture generated high-quality methane reduction credits by collecting detailed field data, accurately quantifying environmental benefits and reporting emissions reduction, the company said. The credits are third-party verified and issued by the Climate Action Reserve.

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Growers in Arkansas, Mississippi, Missouri and Texas participated in the project by implementing practices such as alternate wetting and drying and furrow irrigation. Besides cutting methane emissions by up to 60%, the practices saved 9 billion gallons of water.

Sullivan says Ryan Moore has been instrumental in helping his group of farmers provide the data needed to qualify for the credits.

Moore began his career working with a John Deere dealership to build its agronomy services department, using Deere’s AgWorld software. That included working with Sullivan and six other farmers who signed up for the AgriCapture program.

“In 2019, I started my own agriculture and data technology consulting company, and we were able to get deeper in the weeds with data management and better analytics,” said Moore. “We could focus on some of the pain points on the farm, and how we could make it better from improving field productivity or machine efficiency.”

Tracking data

Most farm machinery comes with new technology from the factory that allows producers to record what they’re doing from tillage to planting to any application of fertilizers to chemicals and harvest yields. Sullivan and the other growers use the Pump Tracker program to determine how much water they’re applying to their rice.

“We have telematic devices that can send data every 30 seconds to a web portal or the cloud where we can analyze that data in real time whether it be from a visual map of the tractor patterns or how many pounds of a fertilizer or gallons of chemical we’ve used on a field or the whole farm,” Moore said.

“If we put 100 pounds of fertilizer on a field, we have a time stamp of when that occurred. We know the total amount of N, P and K we’ve applied and the amount of water, and that information is easily retrieved and sent to AgriCapture. The latter is a bonus because what we’re after primarily is looking at farm efficiency and productivity.”

This is Sullivan’s second year in the AgriCapture program. “We sold three years of carbon credits, but we’ve only been in the program two years,” he said. “They were able to reach back because we had the data support for three years ago.”

Row rice

Much of Sullivan’s water savings are from furrow-irrigated rice. About 75% of the 2,500 acres of rice he typically plants is row rice. Another member of the group, Ryan Sullivan, Gavin’s cousin, is 100% furrow-irrigated rice.

“Going through AgriCapture and the carbon credit program has allowed us to grow more row rice,” Gavin said. “There is some yield lag with row rice, and being able to capture that extra dollar per acre has meant we could grow more row rice and make up for the lesser yield.”

Using the Pump Tracker software and moisture sensors to determine when the rice should be irrigated is an added expense, but funding from USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service helps offset those costs.

“Other than the purchase of the data recording equipment, we’re not out any more in production costs,” he said. “And that’s the joy of this. We’ve been doing this for 10 years because it just makes sense to do it. But we haven’t been able to prove that we were saving water or using less fertilizer or chemicals until now.”

Other members of the group working with Moore agree.

“It’s rewarding to work with AgriCapture and participate in a program that has financially strengthened our family farm, all while enhancing our environmental stewardship,” said Franklin Fogelman, who farms near Marion, Ark.

“AgriCapture makes it possible for us to turn our sustainable practices into revenue by simplifying the process of selling carbon credits,” said Michael McCarty, who also farms near Burdette. “It’s a win for both our farm and the environment.”