Editor's Note: Producers in 14 states have already signed up over 2 million acres of no-till, grass, and forestry acres in a developing program begun by the North Dakota Farmers Union (and now the Iowa Farm Bureau) for their respective national organizations. It involves selling "credits" farmers earn through farming practices that increase the amount of carbon dioxide their crops absorb from the air like a "sponge" and then store in the soil to mitigate the so-called "greenhouse effect" blamed for global warming. The term for this is "carbon sequestration." Through the program, farmers in eligible states can pool their credits to sell tons of stored carbon credits on the Chicago Climate Exchange (www.chicagoclimateexchange.com). It may not fit every farmer, especially those concerned about committing to continuous no-till through 2010. Continuous corn can be a challenge with no-till. (Strip till is also allowed in the contracts.) But it's worked so well in participating states to date that the two organizations soon hope to offer the program in all 50 states for farmers to earn a little extra cash without doing anything more than what many are already doing anyway.
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