Plastina speaks at carbon markets webinar

April 12, 2022
News

Alejandro PlastinaAlejandro Plastina, associate professor, spoke during a Farm Foundation webinar April 12, called “Solving the Barriers to Agricultural Carbon Markets.”

The discussion covered what still needs to be done to advance carbon markets in the United States, as well as an objective look at carbon markets from an economic and legal perspective. Topics included the current pitfalls of carbon markets, opportunities available for farmers and the current direction of both the science and market trends.

The speakers from Iowa State were Alejandro Plastina, associate professor in economics and extension economist, and Kristine Tidgren, director of the Center for Agricultural Law and Taxation and holder of the Leonard Dolezal Professorship in Agricultural Law.

“Agricultural carbon credits can offer some exciting opportunities for farmers and the industry, but there are certain things that need to be done to remove the barriers to the development of these markets,” said Plastina. “Those barriers include defining what a credit actually is, how carbon credit monitoring, reporting and verification might be enforced.”

They were joined by Shelby Myers, economist with the American Farm Bureau Federation, and Garth Boyd, moderator and partner at The Context Network. Boyd is also part of the Carbon Sequestration Task Force organized by Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds in 2021.

The Farm Foundation Forum was held via Zoom webinar April 12 at 9 a.m., and was attended by farmers, ranchers, government officials and staff, industry representatives, food and agribusiness leaders, NGO representatives, academics, researchers, students in agricultural disciplines and members of the media.


Plastina was interviewed for an April 14 Successful Farming story, "What Farmers Need to Know About Carbon Contracts."

“A carbon credit is a tradeable asset that gives the buyer the right to offset the emission of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere,” says Alejandro Plastina, an Iowa State University Extension economist. “Carbon credits are created when entities reduce their carbon emissions, or remove carbon from the atmosphere, compared with a set baseline. Typically, each credit represents 1 metric ton of carbon dioxide.”


 

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