The health and nutrition multinational Bayer will take another step towards building carbon neutral agriculture from this 2021/2022 harvest. In joint work with rural producers and partners, the company launches PRO Carbono, a program part of the Bayer Carbon initiative that offers new advantages for Brazilian farmers willing to increase their productivity and increase carbon sequestration in the soil through the adoption of sustainable agronomic practices
“Brazilian agriculture is already one of the most sustainable on the planet, but there is room for growth”, highlights Eduardo Bastos, director of Sustainability for Bayer’s agricultural division for Latin America. “When we intensify management through sustainable agronomic practices, we expand the possibility of extracting the real value from each germplasm, producing more and more sustainably”, he states.
“Through programs like PRO Carbono, farmers will be able to be rewarded not only for what and how much they produce, but also for the way they produce — which materializes one of our global sustainability commitments and a fundamental part of the effort to make agriculture increasingly protagonist in solving the planet’s climate challenges”, says Bastos.
PRO Carbono participants must implement management practices that enable increased carbon retention in the soil. In return, they will be able to enjoy benefits such as: soil fertility and carbon analysis, access to content and professionals who are references on the topic and support from technical consultancy.
The initiative will also enable significant gains over three years, as explained by Fabio Passos, director of Bayer's Carbon Business for Latin America. “Based on the projects and scientific studies we have already carried out, we estimate that, at the end of the program, it will be possible to obtain a potential average gain of more than 10% in productivity and more than 6% in profitability, not counting the increase in carbon in the soil, straw input and biodiversity. This is a pioneering project and we want to build the results together with the farmers.”
In 2020, the initial project of the Bayer Carbon initiative was launched, which in Brazil alone involved more than 400 producers, focusing on soybeans and corn, in 15 states, exceeding 80 thousand soil samples analyzed. Building on the advances and lessons learned from the first year, the program now enters a new phase, which will include an even greater number of farmers.
As occurred in the first phase, PRO Carbono producers must meet social and environmental compliance prerequisites — among them, respect for the forest code, preservation areas and not being in an indigenous or quilombola area. It is also necessary to be a user or subscribe to the Plus license of the Climate FieldView™ digital agriculture platform, essential for data collection, analysis and traceability and which can be obtained free of charge by customers with three or more stars in the Impulso Bayer relationship program.
Farmers will select a plot of more than 30 hectares to participate in the program for three years. A consultancy service will provide the necessary support for each participant to adopt a range of sustainable management practices, such as no-tillage, cover cropping and/or crop rotation, and productivity and carbon drivers (such as optimizing the use of fertilizers, adoption of biotechnology, crop protection solutions and planting density adjustments).
Bayer leads efforts to, based on collaborative work, science and cutting-edge technology, build a carbon ecosystem in Brazilian agriculture, together with rural producers and partners. Through PRO Carbono, it offers farmers an economically attractive model, in which sustainability is essential and in which actors — industries, banks, government, academics, among others — connect and create solutions that go beyond the agricultural chain.
Along with the intensification of sustainable practices and increased productivity, producers who are part of the carbon ecosystem will be able to access benefits offered by supporters of the initiative. The first institution to announce support is Itaú BBA bank, which is committed to building a financing solution to support Bayer Carbon program customers, with a view to improving their agronomic practices and reducing their carbon footprint.
The unprecedented nature of the initiative brings a series of challenges, such as the technical and scientific barrier of carbon in agriculture and the need to develop carbon measurement methodologies that are accessible, scalable, with viable costs and accepted by international markets and the scientific community.
To face these challenges, Embrapa's participation stands out, involving three research centers in this public-private partnership: Embrapa Informática Agropecuária, Embrapa Instrumentação and Embrapa Meio Ambiente. The Company has vast expertise and has been leading, for more than two decades, research in the areas of global climate change and agriculture, in production systems in different Brazilian biomes, with relevant results on carbon sequestration in the soil.
In the research project developed with Bayer, Embrapa contributes technologies that include innovative analytical methods. Therefore, it must generate rigorous life cycle assessments of production systems considering emissions and removals throughout the agricultural production chain, with a focus on consolidating the carbon market and decarbonizing the economy.
Embrapa will also contribute to Digital Agriculture, with unprecedented modeling and computer simulation methods coupled with cutting-edge intelligent algorithms, which will provide credibility and savings to large-scale carbon quantification. In addition to this, all work is validated with an independent look from a team of experts made up of researchers linked to renowned institutions, such as Esalq/USP, Unesp, UEPG, UFRGS and UFMG.
The list of partners complements the Brazilian Federation of the Direct Planting System, responsible for leveling and disseminating information on best management practices, as well as startups and consultancies that will make it possible to co-create the carbon ecosystem and enhance results.
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