AcreForward Sustainability

Helping your growers get a return on their investment in sustainable farming practices

Unlock new revenue opportunities by helping growers get easier access to the carbon market with our retail-enabled program.

Farming practices that improve soil health and reduce carbon emissions are increasingly being used by growers. However, building a scalable carbon program is still a challenge for the ag community.

Offer your growers soil health insights on their fields and easily apply to carbon programs, building on Taranis’ digital monitoring, reporting, and verification service (D-MRV).

Soil health insights at your fingertips

Taranis AcreForward™ Sustainability delivers new insights, including trends in stocks of soil organic matter.

See the changes in estimated organic matter and carbon stocks based on the specified practices and understand the terms and value of subsidies offered in qualifying carbon programs.

Easy program enrollment

Simplify enrollment to carbon programs by leveraging data already available in the Taranis platform.

Taranis AcreForward Sustainability continues tracking the value of the program over time, so that you can easily see the return on investment in regenerative farming practices.

D-MRV: Efficient validation, at scale

Leveraging agronomy expertise and machine-learning technology, Taranis offers an accurate and efficient digital monitoring, reporting, and verification service (D-MRV). Using high-quality satellite images, our MRV service remotely detects and verifies the use of new farming practices.

Based on proven biogeochemical soil models, AcreForward Sustainability estimates the change in carbon stocks over the length of the carbon program contract.

The Taranis Difference

Insights and what-if capabilities put ag retailers at the center of the soil health and sustainability conversation and help to unlock additional sources of revenue per acre.

Discovery and comparison of carbon programs provides an independent and reliable source of information on available subsidies and incentives.

Leveraging data managed in the Taranis platform, we reduce the overhead of enrolling in qualifying carbon programs.

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

How does Taranis determine a field’s practice history?

Taranis uses a computer vision model which looks at high-resolution satellite images to detect changes in the field. Trained on thousands of annotations, the model can accurately detect a field’s history over the course of time for which satellite images are available, including cover crops, tillage events, plant date, crop classification, and harvest date. This approach allows Taranis to provide accurate history on a field, gather input data for procedural models to estimate soil makeup, and perform third party validation of implemented sustainable practices. All of this without burdening an advisor or grower with data entry.

How does Taranis estimate a field’s organic matter and carbon stock?

Taranis uses a procedural biogeochemical model called DayCent, developed by scientists at Colorado State University. Given land use history, field practice history, soil composition, and detailed weather history, the model can accurately predict various aspects of a field’s crop cycle and soil characteristics, including soil organic matter and sequestered carbon stocks. Use of such a model provides several advantages, including the ability to predict the effect of practice changes on the amount of organic matter in the soil, and the ability to compare baseline results to isolate the effect of changes in practice.

How accurate are the carbon estimates provided by the model?

The science of soil carbon stock measurement is emerging and continues to evolve. Each methodology has its strengths and weaknesses. Taranis believes that using a procedural model provides results which are sufficiently accurate for our purposes, namely long-term trends of soil organic matter and change in carbon stocks compared to a baseline. Taranis has engaged soil scientists to advise and review our implementation of the DayCent model. The implementation of the model includes calibration procedures relying on ground truth soil samples collected over the past two years.

What's next for the Taranis D-MRV service?

The future of scalable carbon programs relies on accurate remote sensing of carbon stocks, a key to unlocking the true value of carbon sequestration in agricultural soil. Taranis continues to invest in this area, building a hybrid remote carbon sensing solution which leverages drone and satellite imagery and biogeochemical models. Using the Taranis solution ensures you’re in position to benefit as the technology advances.

What is the impact of implementing soil health or regenerative ag best management practices?

Aside from the positive impact on the environment and good land stewardship, soil health and regenerative best management practices can also have financial benefits for farms which include:
- Increased crop yields and productivity
- Reduced input costs
- Improved soil quality and structure
- Access to new markets and opportunities

What type of incentive programs are in place for implementing soil health and regenerative agriculture practices?

There are several types of incentive programs in place for implementing soil health and regenerative agriculture practices. Programs are sponsored by the private sector or government grants. The Taranis Carbon solution will partner with select incentive programs to pre-qualify fields and practices, show program terms, and calculate expected benefits.