ycncc
u S D A
Research and scaling up Enhanced Rock Weathering in agricultural settings to capture carbon and elevate farmers' bottom lines
aboutus
We are the Yale Center for Natural Carbon Capture, and we are supported by the USDA to scale up a carbon-capturing technique called Enhanced Rock Weathering (ERW) and bring this method to farmers across the country.
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ERW has the potential to become a key technique in portfolios of carbon dioxide removal technologies..
USDA's Climate Smart Commodities Grant Program
Creating Climate Smart Commodities Through Enhanced Rock Weathering in Agriculture
The "Creating Climate Smart Commodities Through Enhanced Rock Weathering in Agricultural Settings" project, led by Yale University, was recently awarded a $4,898,690 federal grant to support climate-smart enhanced rock weathering pilot projects that would benefit small and under-served farmers in the United States. The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS) awarded our project a Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities grant to help farmers diversify their operations while implementing farming practices that improve land, capture carbon, and mitigate nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions.
About Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities
USDA is committed to supporting a diverse range of farmers, ranchers, and private forest landowners through Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities. This effort will expand markets for America’s climate-smart commodities, leverage the greenhouse gas benefits of climate-smart commodity production, and provide direct, meaningful benefits to production agriculture, including for small and underserved producers.
USDA is investing more than $3.1 billion for 141 projects through this effort and all the projects require meaningful involvement of small and underserved producers.
About the Enhanced Rock Weathering Program
The goal of the project’s partnerships, uniting small and underserved farmer networks and advocacy organizations, innovative basalt suppliers, and high-tech horticulture companies, is to deploy ERW for long-term carbon capture and pH balancing on over a hundred farms in targeted regions. Through this effort, the project will provide a robust demonstration of how basalt dust addition to soils can be a cost-effective means of carbon dioxide removal (CDR) with clear co-benefits to a wide range of farmers, including marketing opportunities for CSCs, pH balancing, and increased crop yields.
Targeted Producers
Producers interested in our program should contact us at csc.ycncc@yale.edu.
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