Indigo
Indigo, a start-up agribusiness firm with various divisions, entered the carbon business in 2018. Indigo Ag is the first program to list a project on a carbon registry. The project consists of hundreds of farmers on millions of acres and they expect to generate the first soil carbon credits by mid 2022.
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Indigo
| Year Organization Established a Carbon Program | 2018 |
| Affiliated Organization Type | Indigo is an agribusiness firm with divisions in crop marketing, seed treatment technology, commodity transportation, as well as carbon. |
| Affiliated Organizations | Soil Metrics, TellusLabs |
| Buyers secured | Maple Leaf Foods, Epiphany Craft Malt, Barclays, JPMorgan Chase, Dogfish Head Craft Brewery, New Belgium Brewing, Give with, IBM, Shopify, Boston Consulting Group |
| Payment Basis to Farmers | $/ton of carbon generated |
| Payment Amount and Details | Credits are currently priced at $45/MTCO2e. Average earnings of $31 per acre per year. The producer always receives 75% of the sold credit price. Indigo sells carbon credits to corporate buyers and other organizations, and producers get paid for the credits they earn. In general, payments are in five installments, vesting over five calendar years. On average, producers are estimated to generate 0.1 to 0.4 credits per acre in their first year and increase credit production over time. |
| Agricultural System Focus | Cropland |
| Eligible States | All US States |
| Eligible Practices | Implement at least one new carbon farming practice prior to the first carbon credit crop. Supported practices include cover crops, crop diversity, reduced tillage, and nitrogen management. |
| Contract Length | 5 year initial contract |
| Contract Details | Annual renewals after the first five years. |
| Monitoring, Reporting and Verification (MRV) | Producers need to record historical and current season management data into the software platform. Indigo pays for MRV. Indigo takes soil samples from a subset of fields. |
| Digital Tools for MRV | Indigo Atlas is a tool capable of characterizing local soil conditions, drawing field boundaries, and discerning subtle differences in crop health. |
| Qualification/eligibility criteria | Submit all field and management information by required deadlines. Demonstrate an increase in overall carbon sequestered and GHG emissions abated over the farm’s unique “baseline,” as determined by Indigo, using farm management information. |
| Minimum Acreage | |
| Must land be owned? | Producers need to show proof of control of land for the contract period. |
| Minimum Data Requirements | Planting: crop type, planting date. Fertilizer: type; application date, rate, and method; inhibitor. Harvest: yield, APH yield, harvest date and method, failed crop date. Tillage: date, equipment. Organic amendment (if applicable): organic amendment type; application date, rate, and method. Cover crop (if applicable): cover crop type and planting date; harvest/termination date and method. Grazing (if applicable): animal type, grazing start/end dates, stocking rate, grazing method, grazing management plan, supplemental feed. Irrigation (if applicable): crop irrigated (Y/N), irrigation method, irrigation start/end dates, flood/drain dates (rice only) |
| Years of management practice data needed | |
| Does the program pay for past practices? | Practice changes are eligible for the program up to 24 months after implementation, allowing for a limit to payment for past practices. |
| Additional information | |
| Payment Calculator | Review potential earnings using Indigo’s calculator |
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For additional details, visit the Indigo website