87BACK TO THE LANDknee-high cash crop. With all these changes, his yields
have remained roughly the same as his neighbors’.
Soon, folks like Jordan might gain a financial edge.
The Terraton Initiative, the nation’s first carbon mar-
ket dedicated to agriculture, launched in June 2019 out
of the farm-tech startup Indigo Ag. Companies that want
to offset their emissions purchase credits; Terraton then
pays growers $15 per ton for the carbon their land cap-
tures. Within six months, farmers tending a total of
10 million acres worldwide—encompassing plenty of the
massive steads that are the face of modern agriculture—
expressed interest in signing up.
More cash would be nice, but climate change is the
motivating factor for Jordan—out of global concern, and
to keep his harvest from washing away. “When I was a
kid, getting 2 or 3 inches of rain in one storm hardly ever
happened,” he says. “Now we’re regularly seeing 6 or 7.”
Increased carbon leads to erosion- resistant clumps
called aggregates, plus a layer of plant residue that soft-
ens downpours. “I can take those big rains,” Jordan says,
“and in a dry spell, having that blanket on the soil keeps
me from losing moisture.” For every percentage-point
increase in organic matter (the carbon- rich product of
decomposition), an acre of topsoil can hold an additional
20,000 gallons of water, according to USDA data.
As Jordan gives me a Jeep tour of his farm, passing
a frozen pond and waist-high swaths of buff- colored
prairie grasses, he ponders his options for grabbing more
carbon. He’d like to find a way to add trees, but it’s a
long-term investment with little short-term upside. Crop
prices have plummeted in recent years, so owners have
scant appetite for risk, he says. “I’m in survival mode.”
Still, he’s proud to be part of a growing minority
pushing carbon-farming practices as a weapon in the
climate fight. In early 2019, he attended a Faith, Farmers,
and Climate Action meeting at a church in Des Moines.
The organizers— a nonprofit that promotes a religious
response to global warming— have had early success
in rallying a handful of growers in conservative Iowa
communities to stop tilling and to plant cover crops.
However they’re recruited, carbon farmers need to
become an army. Growers like Jordan represent the bulk
of American agriculture (the average stead measures 443
acres), so the practice reaching its potential requires that
both midsize outfits and larger-scale cultivators get on
board. Taken together, Earth’s 12 billion acres of farmland
could absorb all the CO 2 that has built up in the atmo-
sphere. Currently, the average concentration of carbon
in soil is about 1 percent; bumping it to 3—ideal growing
conditions— on 30 percent of fields would get us there.
Jordan doesn’t care what incentive it takes— cash, a
desire like Lanier’s to be a “good steward” of the land, or
the satisfaction of rebuilding topsoil— to reach the uncon-
verted. Realizing that our collective fate might hinge on
this revolution, he’s frustrated with the pace of adoption.
“Most farmers will do it only if they see a financial gain.”
But, if nothing else, he’s gained something priceless: “I
feel like I’m farming with a clear conscience.”SPRING 2020