Soil and Water Outcomes
The Soil and Water Outcomes Fund helps farmers implement practices and receive per acre payments. The program is a partnership of AgOutcomes and ReHarvest Partners. They provide financial incentives directly to farmers who transition to on-farm conservation practices that yield positive environmental outcomes like carbon sequestration and water quality improvement.
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| Year Organization Established a Carbon Program | 2020 |
| Affiliated Organization Type | Public-private partnership |
| Affiliated Organizations | AgOutcomes, ReHarvest Partners |
| Buyers secured | The website mentions the environmental outcomes are being purchased by a combination of public and private customers. Specific customer information will be shared with farmers once the final outcomes payment has been made. |
| Payment Basis to Farmers | $/Acre for practice implementation |
| Payment Amount and Details | Determined through partner discussions 2024 average producer payment was $33/acre 50% of the annual payment is paid upfront, with the remaining 50% paid upon verification (payment methodology and timing varies). |
| Agricultural System Focus | Cropland |
| Eligible States | DE, IA, IL, OH, PA, NY, WV, and VA |
| Eligible Practices | No-till, cover crops, crop diversity, perennial crop cover, fertilizer management (not exhaustive), land retirement, conversion to pasture. |
| Contract Length | 1 year |
| Contract Details | Producers can re-enroll acres if willing to continue and/or include more practices. |
| Monitoring, Reporting and Verification (MRV) | Environmental outcomes are verified using a combination of environmental modeling, in-field monitoring, and remote sensing. Soil sampling is performed on 10% of fields every five years. Water sampling is conducted on 10% of fields every two weeks during growing season. |
| Digital Tools for MRV | Producer uses web portal at www.theoutcomesfund.com to create an account, map field boundaries, and enter baseline and future cropping system information. |
| Qualification/eligibility criteria | The field must be Highly Erodible Land (HEL) and wetlands compliant. The producer must enter past and proposed practice information and field boundaries on the enrollment website. The field must be in an eligible location based on partner sourcing requirements. Eligible counties can be found on the program website. |
| Minimum Acreage | None |
| Must land be owned? | Land may be leased, but the applicant needs to have decision-making power over farming practices. |
| Minimum Data Requirements | The Soil and Water Outcomes Fund uses COMET-Farm to calculate the carbon benefits. Based on this information, minimum data for COMET-Farm include: Historical management practices starting from at least 2000 (sourced from remote sensing and public datasets. Baseline management system (full crop rotation), including: Crop (planting date, seeding rate, crop). Tillage (implement, date, depth). Fertilizer and manure (rate, timing, application method). Cover crop (planting date, seeding rate, termination method). Crop protection (date, type of pass). Harvest (date, yield). Proposed management system (full rotation), including all details for the baseline system. |
| Years of management practice data needed | Unclear |
| Does the program pay for past practices? | No, would still need to add at least 1 additional practice |
| Additional information | An estimated 462K metric tons of GHG have been sequestered through the program, as well as 6M lbs. of nitrogen leakage prevention and 352K lbs. of phosphorus leakage prevention. SWOF administers the Midwest Climate-Smart Commodity Program, which was created in 2023 with a $95 million grant awarded through the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities |
| Payment Calculator |
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For additional details, visit the Soil and Water Outcomes Fund’s website