Decode 6, a program from the American Society of Agronomy (ASA), Crop Science Society of America (CSSA) and Soil Science Society of America (SSSA), collectively known as the Tri-Societies, is hosting a symposium at the ASA-CSSA-SSSA Annual Meeting. “Charting the Course of Soil Carbon Modeling” will bring together government, industry and research professionals to discuss the future of carbon modeling to make real-world impacts in agricultural carbon markets. Last year, FFAR invested $100,000 to build inclusivity and accessibility into the Tri-Societies’ new educational website Decode 6. This free, educational website–named for carbon, the sixth element on the periodic table–provides resources in carbon and ecosystem services and their respective markets for the agricultural and environmental sectors. The investment includes a $100,000 match from Tri-Societies, for a total $200,000 award.
This SSSA Cross-Divisional Symposium seeks to inform its members and foster discussion about soil carbon modeling and its role in emissions reductions and agricultural carbon markets. Agriculture is frequently positioned as part of the solution for drawing down carbon and supporting industry, corporations and government entities in their goals to reach carbon neutral emissions. But using agriculture as a solution to actually meet our carbon sequestration needs requires accurate soil carbon modeling to set realistic, ground-truthed measurements and predictions about carbon sequestered and credits generated. This symposium will highlight the important role members of the Societies play in contributing to the long-term success of agriculture as part of the climate solution by setting expectations for and creating robust, realistic, holistic soil carbon models for use in predicting, measuring, reporting and verifying soil carbon sequestration. In fact, both voluntary and compliance carbon markets need accurate, scalable verifiable predictions of soil carbon sequestration to set market prices for carbon credits and set realistic expectations of the amount of carbon a producer can expect to sequester given on-the-ground changes in practice. Taken together, this SSSA Cross-Divisional Symposium seeks to convene thought leaders in the soil carbon modeling space to discuss current capabilities and future directions for measuring, reporting and verifying soil carbon. Symposium attendees will hear from leading model developers from government, academic and industry perspectives, with an emphasis on the current state of soil carbon modeling and implications for the future of the science in practice. In providing a forum for members of these groups to present both current knowledge and the needs of these diverse stakeholders moving forward, this Symposium will serve as a forum for discussion and help create alignment for the future of soil carbon modeling at scale and in practice.
FFAR Supports Decode 6 in Providing Equitable Access to Practical Agricultural Information & Enabling More Informed Decision-Making
Advancing DEI in Sharing Carbon & Ecosystems Services Information