Report points to a positive balance of carbon sequestration on farms owned by Aprosoja-MT members

The report presented during the Carbon Market in Agriculture Seminar, by Delta CO² Sustainability consultant, Carlos Eduardo Pellegrino Cerri, refers to the carbon balance of soybean production on farms associated with the Association of Soy and Corn Producers of Mato Grosso (Aprosoja -MT), from the 2020/2021 harvest. The results indicate that greenhouse gas emissions were 0,57 tons of carbon per hectare; while removals (carbon sequestration) were 2,24 tons of carbon per hectare.

According to Cerri, an estimate of Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions was carried out, as well as a quantification of soil carbon due to the adoption of conservation management practices. “The results, therefore, show a negative carbon balance, that is, beneficial, as it indicates that there was greater removal than emission in that year of evaluation.”

With the theme Opportunities of Payments for Environmental Services (PSA), Pineda and Krahn consultant, Samanta Pineda, presented to rural producers how to carry out environmental regularization in the most economical way possible and showed ways, including how to finance green bonds. “The producer will have positive environmental impacts, and he can do this, at his own expense, in the end when everything is in compliance, as the international Compliance market says (which strictly complies with and observes the legislation to which it submits within its ethical principles in its decision-making), it will be able to offer environmental services”, assured Pineda.

“This is a turning point for rural producers, they move away from fines and environmental rules and onto a path to rewards. Whoever does it right, will be rewarded, will finally have the value of sustainability added to their product”, explained Samanta.

Also according to the consultant, the United Nations (UN) lists 65 environmental services subject to remuneration, in Brazil there are around ten. “That's where we can talk about carbon, which is the best known, but we also have biodiversity, water, soil, landscape, environmental education, and all of this is already present in the rural producer's daily life, we just need to value this, make the producer pay attention that he can add, and the ways in which he will gain from it”, she pointed out.

In the lecture on the Carbon Market, the consultant and specialist on the subject, Éder Zanetti, explained that over the last few years, agricultural cultivation has been considered an emitter of Greenhouse Gases (GHG) due to the substitution of forest land use native to anthropized areas. Anthropogenic land cultivation was a threat and therefore GHG emissions from tropical forests represented a problem for the world.

“At the United Nations Conference on Climate Change (COP26), it was established that anthropogenic land use is the solution to climate change, and that tropical forests, like all others, are part of this solution. With this came the opportunity to generate carbon credits from tropical agriculture, and this can happen on rural properties”, explained Zanetti.

The strategy for working with this new reality, in the voluntary and official carbon markets, with the support of the Business Platform for Environmental and Ecosystem Goods and Services (PNBSAE), was also presented. “We need to develop Brazilian metrics (MRV methodologies), which will be used to measure the amount of carbon credits generated by project activities, rural enterprises, in our country. With this, we will be able to plan to improve our actions”, he concluded.

Rural producer from Sapezal, Pedro Beppler, said that this Seminar on Carbon in Agriculture brings important topics that most of the time we have no idea what it is and how it can help rural people. “Often we only think about working and end up not seeing the great possibilities that the carbon market can offer us and here at this meeting I am having this opportunity, how is this possible even so that I can pass it on to my children who will be able to reap the fruits of these studies”, declared Beppler.

The Aprosoja-MT Sustainability Coordinator, Zilto Donadello, stated that this is the first Seminar that the entity is holding. “We are presenting a study that the Escola Superior de Agricultura "Luiz de Queiroz" (ESALQ) and Aprosoja-MT are carrying out on the carbon stock in the soil, both in native forests and in production areas. Soy/corn is important to show this to the producer, who has been criticized for many years. We are managing to demonstrate that agricultural production is not a villain, but rather a carbon fixer and it is contributing positively to this issue, with important data and a new active environmental market”, assured Donadello.