The American Coalition for Ethanol (ACE) joined agricultural and environmental groups in submitting comments on soil health this week.

The Soil Health Demonstration Trial will provide economic assistance to assist willing farmers participating in the project to assess baseline soil carbon conditions, adopt conservation practices to improve soil carbon sequestration, and measure the resulting soil carbon improvements.

“We look forward to working with USDA to implement this important tool to encourage farmers to implement practices that improve soil health to increase drought resiliency, improve nutrient utilization, and enhance soil carbon sequestration,” said ACE CEO Brian Jennings. “By providing producers with financial assistance to document the changes in soil carbon sequestration, this trial will help quantify the SOC sequestration benefits for the project area, facilitate extrapolation over a larger region, and establish the necessary predicates for lucrative producer access to mandated low carbon fuel (LCF) markets (e.g., CA, OR) and voluntary carbon markets.”

Last year, ACE published a report entitled “The Case for Properly Valuing the Low Carbon Benefits of Corn Ethanol,” based in a large part on work done by South Dakota farmer and ethanol producer Ron Alverson.

Listen to an interview with Alverson about
Interview with Ron Alverson, Dakota Ethanol