Agreena.com and Carbon Credits with STW

steveR

Member
Mixed Farmer
I have been approached by my STEPS adviser from Severn Trent Water with an offer that might be interesting.

Severn Trent have teamed up with https://agreena.com/ . For 1 year ST will cover your subscription (€100/month) to their service and may offer a reduced rate in subsequent years.

The idea is you commit a field(s) to a five year agreement to not plough and for that you get a carbon credit worth approximately £30/ha. You could get more money if you are direct drilling and cover cropping.

Please be aware that this will effectively exclude you from renting that field for potatoes or salad crops.

This includes fields not in the priority catchment.


Very sparse level of details at present, but might well fit in with my Bumblebee farming..... :sneaky: Not a massive amount, but if I am already doing what ios wanted, may well be worth a look... Anyone come across Agreena before?
 
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steveR

Member
Mixed Farmer
£100/month is a hefty subscription. That effectively means your 1st 100 acres of income is to pay them for what you are doing.
No mention of paying for grassland on their site?
Why is is all these carbon credit schemes think that it is only arable land that has all of the answers?
Exactly, the Devil is definitely in the Detail. I'll go and see what is said, as there is a dearth of hard info on the website.

I too thought £1200/annum is a tough starter, even if the first year is subsidised... Maybe better when spread over a large farm?

It feels a bit like the Tree planting offering from STW a few months back, that really did not appeal with totally inadequate funding. I must see how it got on...

I think that someone at STW is producing these ideas and chucking them out in teh farming community, and hoping some will work?




Severn Trent are looking to plant 622 acres of trees to offset some of the carbon footprint of the Commonwealth Games.

I have attached the details.

  • Sites over 20 Acres will receive a premium payment of £80 per acre, per year for 10 years. This includes all acres donated, inclusive of the initial 20 acres. This is a flat rate and not linked to inflation. All planting and trees will be done and supplied by ST.
  • Sites under 20 acres will not receive the premium. All planting and trees will be done and supplied by ST.
  • Minimum size is 2 acres, smaller sites may not be considered if the required area target is met with fewer larger land parcels.
  • Hedgerow trees won’t be considered but belts of 2m wide or more will.
  • Agroforesty will be considered if belt more than 2m wide.
  • The carbon credits will be with ST for 35 years after that they’re yours.
  • You can claim any biodiversity net gain credits.
  • Agreements must be in place by the end of June
 

ajd132

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Suffolk
I’ve done carbon certification with agreena last year and it’s gone well.
£1200 subscription may seem expensive but there is quite a lot of technology and work going into the verification in order to get the ISO accreditation to make it useful.
You get about 65% of the certificates upfront then the rest goes into a legislated buffer pool (the other companies doing this also hve to legally do this) which you then get after a certain amount of time. I think it’s basically to cover any non conformance that may happen.
Overall an easy and simple process.

in my opinion doing it this way is so much better for farmers. Producing food and getting the environmental stuff done at the same time. We need to make a song and dance about this so these stupid ideas of wholesale tree planting for the environment can be squashed.
 

redsloe

Member
Location
Cornwall
I really don’t see how farmers can simultaneously kill the planet and save it at the same time. I wouldn’t touch it.
Depends entirely on your perspective.
£100/month is a hefty subscription. That effectively means your 1st 100 acres of income is to pay them for what you are doing.
No mention of paying for grassland on their site?
Why is is all these carbon credit schemes think that it is only arable land that has all of the answers?
It's obvious, speaking as a mainly grass farmer, how do I actively make grass more, err green?
Same as the RPA they only want to pay you for improvements not what's already there.
I’ve done carbon certification with agreena last year and it’s gone well.
£1200 subscription may seem expensive but there is quite a lot of technology and work going into the verification in order to get the ISO accreditation to make it useful.
You get about 65% of the certificates upfront then the rest goes into a legislated buffer pool (the other companies doing this also hve to legally do this) which you then get after a certain amount of time. I think it’s basically to cover any non conformance that may happen.
Overall an easy and simple process.

in my opinion doing it this way is so much better for farmers. Producing food and getting the environmental stuff done at the same time. We need to make a song and dance about this so these stupid ideas of wholesale tree planting for the environment can be squashed.
Thats interesting. I've contacted agreena and have added fields on the platform, just pondering the merits before going to validation before the end of the month.
As far as I'm aware there's no monthly sub though, just a chunk of your certificates when the time comes to sell them.
 

ajd132

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Suffolk
Depends entirely on your perspective.

It's obvious, speaking as a mainly grass farmer, how do I actively make grass more, err green?
Same as the RPA they only want to pay you for improvements not what's already there.

Thats interesting. I've contacted agreena and have added fields on the platform, just pondering the merits before going to validation before the end of the month.
As far as I'm aware there's no monthly sub though, just a chunk of your certificates when the time comes to sell them.
I can’t remember, I need to renew. They may take payment in certificates? We’ve got about 2000ha on agreena so the sub is quite inconsequential
 

Hjwise

Member
Mixed Farmer
I’ve done carbon certification with agreena last year and it’s gone well.
£1200 subscription may seem expensive but there is quite a lot of technology and work going into the verification in order to get the ISO accreditation to make it useful.
You get about 65% of the certificates upfront then the rest goes into a legislated buffer pool (the other companies doing this also hve to legally do this) which you then get after a certain amount of time. I think it’s basically to cover any non conformance that may happen.
Overall an easy and simple process.

in my opinion doing it this way is so much better for farmers. Producing food and getting the environmental stuff done at the same time. We need to make a song and dance about this so these stupid ideas of wholesale tree planting for the environment can be squashed.
Are you responsible for ensuring that the sequestered carbon remains in the soil for ever more?
 

Muddyroads

Member
NFFN Member
Location
Exeter, Devon
Why? Your paying for the technology and algorithms which allows iso verification.
It should probably be done on a per ha basis though…
So not only is the proposal that we sell the one thing that makes our industry positively unique, but we’re supposed to pay for the privilege? At least where land agency type work is needed the buyer pays the fees.
 

ajd132

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Suffolk
So not only is the proposal that we sell the one thing that makes our industry positively unique, but we’re supposed to pay for the privilege? At least where land agency type work is needed the buyer pays the fees.
Go and develop your own iso accreditation method in a fledgling industry then….

these things are completely optional no one’s forcing you.
 

Muddyroads

Member
NFFN Member
Location
Exeter, Devon
Go and develop your own iso accreditation method in a fledgling industry then….

these things are completely optional no one’s forcing you.
I’ve no problem with anyone exploring new possibilities. As a tenant I would be more restricted even if I wanted to pursue something along these lines, but as far as I’m concerned it’s a combination of emperors new clothes and potentially selling the family silver.
 

ajd132

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Suffolk
I’ve no problem with anyone exploring new possibilities. As a tenant I would be more restricted even if I wanted to pursue something along these lines, but as far as I’m concerned it’s a combination of emperors new clothes and potentially selling the family silver.
Whatever you think of it morally or ethically this kind of stuff is happening, and it will happen regardless of whether farmers want to do it or not. Look at these huge tree planting carbon offset projects.

personally I feel it’s an opportunity to grow food and do the carbon stuff at the same time. If we don’t grab it and prove we can do both then you will see far more farms ending up re wilded or into trees. There is a good opportunity here to take the initiative but no doubt what will happen is farmers will be sceptical, end up getting screwed over and it becoming mandatory.
Although saying that, these markets put a baseline price into the value of the carbon footprint/sequestration of food. So for example if a mill suddenly demands we do all these things to help them out, we can demand a premium because the market is there setting a value.
This is just how I see it at the moment, the moral and ethical debate is a different one but I think the world is already way past that so I can’t see this kind of thing suddenly disappearing.
 

onesiedale

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Derbyshire
had a call from Agreena today following my website enquiry.
However, as we are a grassland farm, farming 300ha of pp they are unable to offer us any accreditation because they said it is too difficult to measure the carbon accurately in our soils :banghead:
 

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