FAQ

Frequently asked questions.

All your questions and answers.

1.1 - What is the duration of the commitment for a farmer joining the programme?

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The duration of the programme is 5 years. By subscribing to Soil Capital Carbon, you commit to an initial GHG assessment at the time of registration (“baseline assessment”), and then a GHG assessment each year for the following 5 years. During the 5 years of the programme, 80% of your certificates can be sold immediately. The remaining 20% will be held in the buffer and can only be sold 10 years later (years 10 to 15) when we have been able to verify that you have retained the carbon added to your soil during the programme. This verification is done via satellite and no longer involves GHG assessments or data sharing.

2.3 - I do not direct drill, am I eligible?

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Yes. Direct drilling, or no-till, is not a hard requirement to store carbon. There are other factors (such as organic fertilisation, cover cropping, minimum tillage, etc.) that improve the carbon balance in the soil in the model that we use.

4.2 - What baseline will I be paid against?

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Each tonne of CO2e reduced or sequestered during the programme generates a carbon certificate. Your baseline assessment influences how your certificates will be calculated.If your baseline assessment shows that you are already sequestering carbon overall, your annual GHG balance will be compared to a fixed regional reference (+250kg CO2e/ha for regions assessed so far) and the difference between your annual performance and this regional reference will be translated into certificates.If your baseline assessment shows that you are a net emitter of GHGs, your annual GHG balance will be compared to your own baseline assessment and you will therefore have to improve your practices to create a differential that will be translated into a number of certificates. In this case, it is the difference between your new situation in year x and your initial situation that determines the number of certificates generated.

4.3 - Does Soil capital guarantee that all certificates generated will be sold ?

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- We do not make this guarantee. What we do guarantee is that each certificate sold earns the farmer at least £23. This is based on our floor price commitment of €27.50 per certificate, which is £23 at a GBP-EUR exchange rate of 1.2. Future prices are subject to the prevailing exchange rate at that time. What’s more, we guarantee that you will always receive 70% of the final sales price, however high that sales price rises.

- We do also have a limited number of agreements that allow us to guarantee the sale of certificates for some farmers, thanks to the multi-year commitments already made by some companies;

- There is every indication that demand for these certificates is currently outstripping supply. As an example, when we launched the programme, we had already pre-sold €500,000 worth of certificates that would be generated in the following years;Note also that 20% of all certificates generated will not be sold that year. They must be held in a buffer and will be sold 10 years later if you meet the loss prevention criteria.

4.4 - How much can I expect to earn?

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- Your potential earnings depend on your practices, context and efforts throughout the programme. The baseline assessment already gives you an idea of your potential gains for the following year. Indeed, if you are already a net sequestering farm when you register, your annual GHG balance will be compared to a fixed regional reference (+250kg CO2e/ha for regions assessed so far). If you are a net emitter, your annual GHG balance will be compared to your baseline assessment and you will therefore have to improve your practices to earn carbon revenue;

- Although it depends on your practices, it is not uncommon to store between 0.5 and 2 tonnes of carbon per hectare per year or to improve your carbon profile by 0.5 to 1 tonne of carbon per hectare per year. We make it a point to ensure that you earn a minimum income of £23 per tonne sold. In fact, we make a floor price commitment of €27.50 per certificate, which is £23 at a GBP-EUR exchange rate of 1.2 (future prices are subject to the prevailing exchange rate at that time);

- A 200 ha farm that stores 1 tonne of carbon per ha per year would generate a net gain of at least £22,640 over the course of the programme.

1.1 - What is the duration of the commitment for a farmer joining the programme?

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The duration of the programme is 5 years. By subscribing to Soil Capital Carbon, you commit to an initial GHG assessment at the time of registration (“baseline assessment”), and then a GHG assessment each year for the following 5 years. During the 5 years of the programme, 80% of your certificates can be sold immediately. The remaining 20% will be held in the buffer and can only be sold 10 years later (years 10 to 15) when we have been able to verify that you have retained the carbon added to your soil during the programme. This verification is done via satellite and no longer involves GHG assessments or data sharing.

1.2 - What are the requirements for farmers during the programme?

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During the programme, all farmers must:
- Carry out a baseline analysis using mySoilCapital;
- Carry out an annual assessment of the farm’s GHG balance using mySoilCapital;
- Implement relevant practices as best as possible;
- Keep a complete record of inputs (invoices), operations and yields;
- Cooperate with auditors if you are selected amongst the small sample of all participating farmers for an annual audit (including to check records such as pesticide inventories and official farm area and crop rotation declarations).

1.3 - What are the requirements for farmers during the retention period?

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The retention period is the period following the 5-year programme. This is the period during which the farmer must, at a minimum, maintain carbon stored in the soil during the programme.

During the retention period, all farmers must:
- Provide the results of a laboratory soil analysis carried out at the end of the five-year programme;
- Maintain the carbon stored in your soils for 10 years (key risk factors will be monitored by satellite).

1.4 - How does the audit/data verification process work?

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Farmers must be able to present the following:
- All invoices for purchased inputs and purchased operations (i.e. those carried out by third-party contractors);
- Data on the farm area cultivated and crops in the rotation, in line with official declarations;
- The declaration of stocks of pesticides purchased but not used and stored, in accordance with legislation on the use of pesticides, for the season in question;
- Data from any farm management software used to record operational and input use data for the farm;
- Where applicable, operational and input use data reported to organic certification bodies;
- Official accounting details for the farm;
- All audit costs are covered by Soil Capital; you will not be charged anything.

1.5 - How much does it cost to participate in Soil Capital Carbon?

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The price for a typical farm is £980 excluding VAT for the baseline assessment and £980 excluding VAT for each annual diagnosis, so a total of £5,880 excluding VAT for the complete programme. Please note that the costs of any soil analyses (one at the beginning of the programme if you have not done so for more than 5 years, and another at the end of the programme) are not included in the programme. All other costs related to certification, possible audits and the sale of certificates are included in the price and no additional costs will be charged during the programme.

2.1 - The area I farm changes slightly each year, am I eligible?

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Yes. From a programme perspective, the area you farm cannot increase during the programme period. So, if you know that your area under cultivation changes slightly each year, you must enter the area that will remain under your control for the duration of the programme.

2.2 - I rent out some of my fiels, am I eligible?

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If you rent out a small part of your land each year, you can continue to register that land if you commit to providing the required operational data each year so that we can calculate the impact of your tenant’s practices.

2.3 - I do not direct drill, am I eligible?

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Yes. Direct drilling, or no-till, is not a hard requirement to store carbon. There are other factors (such as organic fertilisation, cover cropping, minimum tillage, etc.) that improve the carbon balance in the soil in the model that we use.

2.4 - I Have been direct drilling for more than 15 years, am I eligible?

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Yes. However, the scientific conclusions of the IPCC (on which the carbon quantification model we use is based) consider that certain practices, i.e. minimum tillage, no-till, organic fertilisation and cover cropping, stop accumulating carbon in soils after 20 years, under the following conditions:
- Systematic use (i.e. every year)
- On more than 50% of the total area of your farm.
- If your farm meets these conditions, our programme is not optimal for you, as some of your practices will not continue to generate carbon certificates.

2.5 - My farm area includes peat soils, am I eligible?

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Soil Capital Carbon has been designed for farms with mineral soils – specifically, mineral soils with an organic matter below 10%. If your farm area includes peat soils or those with an organic matter higher than 10%, you can still enrol. However, we will exclude those fields from the farm area enrolled in the programme. We advise that the remaining area should be at least 100ha to ensure the programme benefits you financially.

3.1 - What are the requirements for farmers at the time of registration?

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To register, all farmers must:
- Provide the geographical boundaries of the farm’s fields via our mySoilCapital platform;
- Perform a baseline assessment of the farm’s GHG balance with mySoilCapital using data from the last completed season;
- Accept the terms and conditions of the programme. For tenants with less than five years left on their lease, an assignment of interest form must also be signed by the landowner;
- Provide the results of a laboratory soil analysis of your farm’s soil organic matter carried out within the previous five years.

3.2 - I have several farming entities managed in the same way. Do I have to register each of them and pay several times?

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No. If the two farming entities are managed in the same way (same machines, crops, management practices, etc.), you only have to pay for one programme because Soil Capital Carbon considers them as one farm.

3.3 Can I sign up to more than one carbon payment programme at the same time?

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No. Carbon payments are not cumulative.

3.4 - I am already receiving a carbon payment on some of my crops (such as oilseed rape), can I register with Soil Capital carbon?

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Yes, although you cannot sell your carbon certificates for one crop twice, we can accept sunflower or oilseed rape crops that are already part of a GHG Bonus programme (e.g. BAS GES in France) into Soil Capital Carbon.

3.5 - My farm is/will be certified against an environmental standard like Red Tractor, can I register with Soil Capital carbon?

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Yes. If the certification scheme is not a carbon payment scheme, it is compatible with the Soil Capital Carbon scheme.

3.6 - Can I participate in both the Sustainable farming incentive and Soil capital carbon?

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We are in the process of evaluating whether it makes financial sense for farmers to enrol in the SFI 2022 Standard as well as Soil Capital Carbon, knowing that we would generate carbon payments for you relating only to the farming practices not required by the SFI for you to earn your SFI payments. Please contact us directly to discuss the specifics of your farm.

4.1 - When will be paid?

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You will be paid each year during the carbon certificate crediting period (i.e. in years 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5) after the delivery of your mySoilCapital monitoring report.

4.2 - What baseline will I be paid against?

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Each tonne of CO2e reduced or sequestered during the programme generates a carbon certificate. Your baseline assessment influences how your certificates will be calculated.

If your baseline assessment shows that you are already sequestering carbon overall, your annual GHG balance will be compared to a fixed regional reference (+250kg CO2e/ha for regions assessed so far) and the difference between your annual performance and this regional reference will be translated into certificates.

If your baseline assessment shows that you are a net emitter of GHGs, your annual GHG balance will be compared to your own baseline assessment and you will therefore have to improve your practices to create a differential that will be translated into a number of certificates. In this case, it is the difference between your new situation in year x and your initial situation that determines the number of certificates generated.

4.3 - Does Soil capital guarantee that all certificates generated will be sold?

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- We do not make this guarantee. What we do guarantee is that each certificate sold earns the farmer at least £23. This is based on our floor price commitment of €27.50 per certificate, which is £23 at a GBP-EUR exchange rate of 1.2. Future prices are subject to the prevailing exchange rate at that time. What’s more, we guarantee that you will always receive 70% of the final sales price, however high that sales price rises.

- We do also have a limited number of agreements that allow us to guarantee the sale of certificates for some farmers, thanks to the multi-year commitments already made by some companies;

-There is every indication that demand for these certificates is currently outstripping supply. As an example, when we launched the programme, we had already pre-sold €500,000 worth of certificates that would be generated in the following years;

- Note also that 20% of all certificates generated will not be sold that year. They must be held in a buffer and will be sold 10 years later if you meet the loss prevention criteria.

4.4 - How much can I expect to earn?

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- Your potential earnings depend on your practices, context and efforts throughout the programme. The baseline assessment already gives you an idea of your potential gains for the following year. Indeed, if you are already a net sequestering farm when you register, your annual GHG balance will be compared to a fixed regional reference (+250kg CO2e/ha for regions assessed so far). If you are a net emitter, your annual GHG balance will be compared to your baseline assessment and you will therefore have to improve your practices to earn carbon revenue;

- Although it depends on your practices, it is not uncommon to store between 0.5 and 2 tonnes of carbon per hectare per year or to improve your carbon profile by 0.5 to 1 tonne of carbon per hectare per year. We make it a point to ensure that you earn a minimum income of £23 per tonne sold. In fact, we make a floor price commitment of €27.50 per certificate, which is £23 at a GBP-EUR exchange rate of 1.2 (future prices are subject to the prevailing exchange rate at that time);

- A 200 ha farm that stores 1 tonne of carbon per ha per year would generate a net gain of at least £22,640 over the course of the programme,

4.5 - I am not yet implementing regenerative agriculture practices; will I be paid?

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Yes. If you are not yet sequestering carbon overall, you can generate carbon certificates (and therefore payments) by reducing your emissions and increasing your storage each year compared to your own personal baseline.

4.6 - Renewal costs deducted from your carbon remuneration?

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Each tonne of CO2e reduced or sequestered during the programme generates a carbon certificate. Carbon certificate payments are made every 4 months based on what we have sold. If you join the Soil Capital programme from 2024, then you have the opportunity to deduct your renewal fee from the first carbon payment we make to you.

5.1 - What is carbon certificate and how does it differ from a credit?

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Soil Capital Carbon allows a farmer to sell carbon certificates and not carbon credits.

The certificates we issue are in fact bought by two types of company.

On the one hand, there are agribusinesses buying crops in the UK, France and Belgium that want to evidence reductions in the emissions of their supply chain.

On the other hand, there are companies not linked to farming that use the certificates to contribute to the decarbonisation of their region, but without using them in their carbon accounting. The difference between purchasing a carbon certificate or a carbon credit for these companies lies mainly in the possibility or not to offset their emissions and declare carbon neutrality. Carbon certificates do not allow a company to offset its emissions and declare itself carbon neutral, whereas carbon credits do.

5.2 - What price are my Soil capital carbon certificates sold for / What will be my earning?

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- You will be paid a minimum of £23 per carbon certificate. This is the minimum price that Soil Capital commits to sell certificates at. In fact, we make a floor price commitment of €27.50 per certificate, which is £23 at a GBP-EUR exchange rate of 1.2; future prices are subject to the prevailing exchange rate at that time.

- This price can increase during the course of the programme if the price of carbon certificates rises, as is forecast. Certificates are sold annually and we guarantee farmers the same fixed ratio of the final sales price for the entire duration of your commitment, based on the average price at the time of the sale of certificates each year.

5.3 - Why do you withhold 20% of my certificates each year for 10 years?

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We retain this percentage for 10 years in the buffer. The buffer serves as a mechanism to compensate for potential carbon losses (release) during the programme and to give reassurance on the permanence of carbon storage that your certificates represent to buyers. Each time a loss is confirmed during an audit, a corresponding number of certificates will be removed (cancelled) from the buffer to compensate for the loss. Certificates that are placed in the buffer will not be sold until the end of the 10th season after these certificates were generated.

5.4 - Who will buy my carbon certificates

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Companies (both food and non-food companies) that want to support more responsible agriculture. Companies with no supply chain link to farmers cannot use these certificates to offset their emissions; such companies cannot claim carbon neutrality through this mechanism. Our preference is to sell certificates to food companies; by buying your certificates, companies that also buy your crops can demonstrate that their supply chain emissions have been reduced.

5.5 - Can I sell my carbon certificates myself?

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No. The carbon certificates generated during the programme will be exclusively for sale via Soil Capital. Farmers are not allowed to sell or transfer carbon certificates to third parties but can refer potential buyers to Soil Capital.

5.6 - How will you manage the release of carbon from the soil in case of a loss event?

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We declare a ‘loss event’ when a release of carbon from the farm’s soils occurs. This will need to:
- be caused by practices not used in the previous season (e.g. more intensive land preparation), except in the context of a transition to certified organic production;
- be the result of management decisions and not weather events;
- account for more than 5% of the emission reductions and sequestration achieved by you in the programme at that time.

If a loss event occurs:
- Farmers will not have to return money already received;
- Instead, a “buffer” is set up from the first year: 20% of generated certificates are placed in this buffer each year and cannot be sold;
- In the event of a “loss event”, certificates from the buffer will be used to cover the carbon release;
- The farmer will have to contribute the same number of certificates to the buffer again in future years before carbon payments resume;
- If no losses are incurred, after 10 years the certificates in the buffer are sold and farmers will receive their payments.

6.1 - What data do you need for the baseline analysis with mySoilCapital?

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- A representative technical itinerary per crop for the most recent completed harvest from the last two years.
- The following information is required: type of operation and equipment used, inputs (types and quantities) applied and other management practices like the use of cover crops.
- If this information is already in a farm management software, it will facilitate data entry.

6.2 - How do you make life easier for farmers by leveraging data that already exist?

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- You are invited to use existing files needed for the BPS so that our platform automatically identifies your farm boundaries and crops in your rotation.
- We also use your farm’s location to automatically identify certain soil characteristics using third-party maps.
- We are working on various integrations with Farm Management Softwares, but in the meantime if the data we require is already in a Farm Management Software that you use, this will greatly accelerate the process.

6.3 - Is soil analysis required?

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Yes. We need one recent analysis of soil organic matter upon enrolment (done within the 5 years prior to your enrolment in the programme) in order to verify the information you give us about soil conditions and one new analysis at the end of the programme (year 5) in order for the scientific community that constantly works on the quantification model that we use (the Cool Farm Tool) to further improve it.

7.1 - What practices will help me optimize my carbon balance?

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Organic fertilisation, reduced or no tillage, legumes in the crop rotation, cover cropping, reduced fuel use and reduced use of synthetic inputs.

7.2 - I have grass margins and/or permanent grassland on my farm. Are these parts of the farm counted in my GHG balance?

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No. Permanent grasslands are excluded from the areas considered for the carbon calculation in the arable methodology because the areas linked to livestock farming must be part of a specific carbon calculation for livestock farming. Livestock farming has its own carbon methodology and we intend to integrate it into the programme in the future. However, temporary grasslands are considered in the current arable methodology (as crops) and are a source of carbon sequestration. Permanent grass margins are considered as permanent grassland.

7.3 - Are hedgerows accounted for in my GHG balance?

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Hedgerows, orchards, woodland and forests are not counted for two reasons:
- Our calculation methodology does not currently allow us to quantify the sequestration benefit of hedgerows
- We must avoid double payments (since there are often subsidies for the installation of hedges, for example).

On the other hand, we do account for in-field trees planted using agroforestry techniques.

7.4 - Does the performance of my cover crops (dry matter achieved) influence my GHG carbon balance?

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No. To date the performance (i.e. the biomass) of cover corps is not included in the GHG balance, only the fact that they have been implemented.

7.5 I have installed a biogas unit on my farm, is it taken into account in my GHG balance?

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Biogas units are not directly accounted for in the GHG balance because our programme focuses on emissions from on-field practices and those associated with the inputs used for them. However, the use of digestates as an input is accounted for and has a positive influence on the GHG balance.

7.6 - In my rotation I have potatoes, sugar beet and chicory, can I still store carbon?

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Yes. These crops are often perceived as requiring more intensive tillage, although some people manage to get good yields with minimum tillage. In any case, tillage is not the only lever to store carbon. Having crops that typically require more intensive tillage in your rotation does not block your participation in the programme, nor your ability to generate carbon certificates.

8.1 - What is Soil Capital's business model?

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- The £980 mySoilCapital fee is used to cover the farm analysis costs (including development of the mySoilCapital tool, data collection and encoding, verification and delivery of the analysis).
- We and any partner that has provided you with transition support, also receive a commission on the sale of certificates to cover the costs of sales, maintaining the programme and audit costs. This fixed percentage – Soil Capital’s is in the single digits – allows us to align our interest with that of the farmer but we are insistent that the farmer always takes the clear majority (70%) of the final sales price.

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