Bayer announced a partnership with UK-headquartered company Trinity Agtech. As part of Bayer’s efforts to drive regenerative agriculture, Trinity Agtech’s platform Sandy will be instrumental for Bayer’s Carbon Initiative in the region EMEA (Europe, the Middle East and Africa) in measuring and monitoring carbon on a farm level.
The European Carbon Initiative is vital to Bayer’s overall strategy to shape regenerative agriculture. This includes making agriculture more productive and resilient while restoring natural resources. Started off in 2021, the Carbon Initiative now includes multiple tailored projects with large companies from the food supply and agricultural value chain.
Today, farmers across several European countries and companies across the Food and Farming supply chain are working alongside with these partners to reduce carbon emissions and sequester carbon in the soil. Project results show that growers that are using regenerative practices are emitting on average 15 percent less carbon than conventional farmers. By 2025, Bayer expects to increase the number of food and ag value chain projects and the number of farmers participating in value chain programs as the European Carbon Initiative is going to switch from pilot phase to scale-up phase for commercial projects.
To support these goals, reliable monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV) is key for all players of the food value chain to be compliant with third parties, global guidelines, certification bodies and regulatory requirements. With Sandy, Trinity Agtech has developed a cloud-based platform where farmers and project developers will bring all their data into one place to create a fact-based and primary data driven register of a farm’s natural capital. This allows the farmer to assess the farm’s carbon balance and options going forward.
Working with internationally approved models
Trinity’s models and analytical frameworks are nationally and internationally compliant with the IPCC standards and other key global guidelines, such as the GHG-P, in addition to previous verification against ISO 14.064 and 14.067 methodologies. Trinity Agtech’s scientific board contains international experts to ensure the most accurate possible assessment for the farmer with the available data. A recent study commissioned by the UK Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA) across 81 carbon calculators has placed Trinity’s software Sandy on the first rank in assessing farm carbon footprints and natural capital.
Approach to regenerative agriculture
One of Bayer’s strategic priorities is to help shape regenerative agriculture by investing in innovations that increase food production, farm incomes and climate resilience, while also protecting and restoring nature. In line with the political objectives of the EU Green Deal, Bayer is working on the decarbonization of the food value chain focusing on farmers’ activities and connecting them with companies from the food value chain. The idea is to reward growers for adopting regenerative agriculture practices like using cover crops, tillage reduction, crop rotations and precision nitrogen application. These activities sequester carbon in the soil while improving soil health, resilience and productivity as well as limiting emissions. Digital technologies are important enablers for these endeavors.
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