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.
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.
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).
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).
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.
