Market Solutions to Clean Up CAFO’s?
Marcia Oddi of the Indiana law Blog sent me a link that probably ended up on her radar because it involves “Indiana” and “CAFO,” but the piece put up by socialfunds.com is about CAFO’s in Indiana, Pennsylvania. However, the piece (Indiana Dairies to Capture More Than a Million Tons of Greenhouse Gases) is worthwhile reading for folks concerned about CAFO’s.
It discusses the global market that has been created for greenhouse gases, specifically, industries can engage in procedures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in exchange for cash, while other industries buy the pollution “credit” in order to be permitted to generate greenhouse gases. Here, a 4 farm mega dairy in Indiana, PA with 17,000 cows has agreed to install methane digesters manufactured by GHD, Inc. to reduce methane production. The farms enrolled in an exchange put together by the Environmental Credit Corporation (www.envcc.com) a member of the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX), “North America’s only voluntary, legally binding rules-based greenhouse gas trading system.”
One note in the piece that I did not know is that methane is a more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, advancing global warming 21 times faster. The focus of the piece is how farmers can actually generate revenue by participating in the credit program:
With about eight million dairy cows in the U.S., potential revenues to the dairy industry from carbon credits could exceed tens of millions of dollars annually as the greenhouse gas market grows. Dozens of farmers have already applied to enroll in ECC’s carbon credit program, joining with other farms to take early advantage of this new source of revenue.
Jim Jensen, ECC’s VP of Business Development, meets with dairy farmers regularly to discuss the growing opportunities. As he puts it: “American farmers can be great stewards of the environment; they deserve to be recognized for the actions they take to reduce global warming. Cash for carbon credits is a great place to start.” Farmers interested in ECC’s carbon credit program should contact Jim at (814) 235-1623 or jjensen@envcc.com.
By the by, ECC is a unit of Ceres, a network of investment funds, environmental groups and others dedicated to encouraging environmental stewardship in business.
