Kansas farmer mitigates risk with carbon program

With rising uncertainty in all aspects of farming, some farmers are turning to sustainable farming practices to manage risk. Carbon programs like Indigo Ag are allowing farmers to cash in on those practice changes.

For Ryan Brady, a southwest Kansas farmer enrolled with Indigo who farms 75% dryland and 25% irrigated land, protecting the soil was a key factor in implementing cover crops throughout the summer.

"We really are relying on mother nature to get us through," he says.

Brady says in many no-till operations, a wheat, milo, or corn crop is followed by a fallow period, allowing the bare soil to get baked by the sun.

"The past two years we've put in a Sudan Grass or German Millet mix," Brady says. "We tend to put it in the end of May or early June, after we've controlled some of the Palmer amaranth or pigweed emergence."

By utilizing cover crops throughout the summer months, Brady is able to keep soils cooler and suppress weed emergence. The cover crops also opened the opportunity to enroll in a carbon program.

"If we can have a cover crop or viable cash crop as often as we can, that's giving us the opportunity to take advantage of some doors that are opening up for us."

For Brady's operation, investing in cover crops over the summer reduced the need for spraying herbicides in the summer. In turn, he was able to save money while offsetting the cost of new practices with the carbon program payouts.

"The carbon program payment is just icing on the cake," he says.

Brady recommends farmers looking to join a carbon program get familiar with a record keeping system now. In depth records can help simplify the enrollment process while also providing an in-depth understanding of your farm.

"Being able to record everything you do on every individual track is going to save you so much time," Brady says. "On a side note, you just have a better idea of what's going on on your farm. I can pull up data of what something cost me per acre or bushel. Before I had a number in my head of what things cost, but I couldn't go to Vegas with that number."

Context Network

This article is part of the SF Carbon Connection, a joint carbon market project between Successful Farming magazine and The Context Network, West Des Moines, Iowa. We are developing editorial content regarding existing carbon markets and carbon programs available to farmers. Each month, Successful Farming magazine and Agriculture.com will contain stories that enable farmers to dig deeper into carbon markets. Future carbon market coverage may also convey information through other media platforms.