Introducing TruCarbon™ from Great Bend Co-op and Truterra™

When Great Bend Co-op first started looking into a partnership with Truterra™, formerly Land O’Lakes™ Sustain, the writing was on the wall. Leadership could see that the industry was headed into unknown territory but knew we needed to be one of the first in our area to bring it to market. Six years later that idea has come to fruition. Great Bend Co-op is now proud to offer its growers access to TruCarbon™, a brand new initiative to help growers generate and sell carbon credits to major corporations such as Microsoft®.

Recently, the idea of carbon credits has reemerged as large companies focus on reducing their impact on global warming and carbon in the atmosphere. TruCarbon™ is a new carbon program that will help farmers generate a new form of revenue through the sale of historic carbon credits. This first of its kind program allows growers to take advantage of carbon sequestered by the soil for practice changes up to five years ago. In other words, it is currently the only carbon program that is rewarding growers who have already taken steps to improve soil health and stewardship on their operation.

The program offers growers $20/ton of carbon in the soil with payments coming in late summer of 2021. The best candidates for this program are the growers that have adopted certain management practices in the last 5 years. Some of these management practices include no-till, strip till, and cover crops. Utilizing historical data allows growers gain return on previous practices without limiting access to future carbon credit programs that may evolve.

Great Bend Co-op is one the limited few dealers in Kansas that has access to this exciting program. We want to help our growers maximize their return on investment of stewardship practices.

At this time, TruCarbon is no longer accepting new applicants. 

Great Bend Co-op and Truterra™ Partnership

Through Great Bend Co-op’s sustainability program, growers can access the Truterra™ Insights Engine (TIE). TIE is a sustainability data program that growers can partner with the Great Bend Co-op to input data of on farm data to help improve soil health and sell carbon credits. By having data in TIE, growers are in the best position to take advantage of future carbon offerings.

Great Bend Co-op understands that Sustainability is defined differently by almost everyone. Our sustainability promise: Sustainability is understanding that the livelihood and profitability of our grower owners is imperative to our mutual success. Our focus is on utilizing conservation, precision, and innovation to improve profitability and longevity for future generations, while improving our effect on the environment.

For more information, please reach out to Mark Bauer (mbauer@gbcoop.com) or Cammie Vaupel (cvaupel@gbcoop.com) at Great Bend Co-op.