Providing Carbon Credit Incentives for the Adoption of Lagoon Covers on Hog Farms in North Carolina and the Dairies in New York

ECC seeks to expand the development and implementation of an innovative, market-based carbon credit program to cover manure lagoons, reduce methane emissions, enhance air quality, and provide additional farm income to hog farms in North Carolina and dairies in New York. Leveraging CIG funds, the project will provide lagoon covers and carbon credit services including ongoing monitoring, documentation, verification, and registration for 8-10 hog farms in North Carolina and 6-8 dairies in New York. The program will link agriculture producers that have anaerobic manure treatment lagoons with the Chicago Climate Exchange, an active and highly successful voluntary U.S. framework fro quantifying, verifying, registering, and trading greenhouse gas emission reductions. Farmers will receive reliable carbon credit revenues for the adoption of well-proven technologies. The proposed project will provide on-the-ground implementation, demonstration, evaluation, and refinement of a market-based incentive program with multiple production-related and environmental benefits. The will reduce greenhouse gas emission from these by 40,000 to 60,000 metric tons of CO2 equivalents per year and will substantially reduce other emissions including volatile organic compounds, ammonia, hydrogen sulfide, and particulate matter precursors. The project will also improve lagoon operation and liquid storage capacity, and will demonstrate how farmers and technology providers can obtain added revenue through carbon credit payments which, depending on future carbon prices, may range from $160,000 to over $250,000 per year for the participating farms combined.