Which regenerative farming practices qualify for enrollment in Nori's marketplace?
Below is a limited list of agronomic practices that are highly effective in sequestering carbon in the soil. These practices are important in both your baseline and future switches to help understand the project’s potential SOC, or soil organic carbon, gain:
- Reduced tillage or no-till
- increased biodiversity in crop rotations
- Cover crops (particularly legume mixes)
- Adding (or increasing) organic manure
- Longer growing seasons
- Planting perennials (grasses, alfalfa)
- Adding crops to alleys of orchards and vineyards
Nori issues Regenerative Tonnes based on soil organic carbon stock changes (“SOCSC”) between historic practices and recently adopted regenerative practices. While regenerative practices are important for many ecosystem services benefits (e.g. improved water quality, reduced erosion, improved weed management, etc), Nori is mainly focused on practices that increase SOC. Therefore, certain regenerative practices – such as a reduction in synthetic fertilizer, or organic farming with increased tillage passes – do not have a measurable difference in increasing SOC in the current model used by Nori.
Additionally, because Regenerative Tonnes are issued based on the change in SOC from old to new practices, additional regenerative agricultural practices may not result in large enough incremental carbon sequestration when there has been high carbon sequestration in historic management (also known as the baseline), this may result in low or negative NRT projections. In general, the less disturbed the soil and the more plant biomass left on the soil, the more carbon sequestration takes place on that piece of land.
For more information on enrolling in Nori’s marketplace as a regenerative agriculture supplier, visit our Supplier homepage.