Locus Ag partners with Bluesource to market carbon credits

Locus Agricultural Solutions has entered a partnership with carbon offsets and credits retailer Bluesource.

The partnership is designed to give farmers enrolled in Locus Ag’s CarbonNow program another avenue to market and sell carbon credits, which are generated through sustainable crop production processes.

CarbonNow is the start-up’s program for farmland owners that takes them through the process of sequestering and measuring carbon captured in their soil in line with a desired methodology, through to having that carbon capture verified by third parties and then marketed and sold by a retailer such as Bluesource.

“The partnership we have [with Bluesource] is quite transformational for Locus and our growers, in that there is a massive player on the buyside that has the corporate relationships,” Locus Ag chief executive Grant Aldridge told Agri Investor.

“They have been there and done that and over their tenure have sold over 150 million metric tonnes of carbon, valued at over $500 million, so they’re a proven commodity.”

Bluesource has predominantly been involved in carbon offsets generated through the renewables industry and agroforestry since it was established in 2001, said Aldridge, with the Locus Ag tie-up representing the company’s full entrance into the agricultural sector.

“They’re a project developer retailer of carbon so they think of it in terms of projects. If you’ve got a Fortune 50 company for example that says we need a million metric tonnes of carbon per year till 2030, they [Bluesource] would set that up as a project through us,” Aldridge said.

“We would put forth together growers and let’s say they’re focused on Midwestern corn farmers, that’s a project to deliver that amount of carbon to meet their customer’s needs.”

Locus Ag partnered with Nori in January 2020 – another start-up developing a carbon trading marketplace such as those provided by Indigo Ag and CIBO Technologies. Locus Ag secured its first sale of carbon credits for a farmer enrolled in its CarbonNow program through the Nori marketplace in October 2020.

Shopify bought the credits at $15 per ton of carbon sequestered equivalents. One credit is given for each ton of carbon dioxide equivalents removed from the atmosphere. The deal’s full financial details were undisclosed.

Locus Ag is a wholly owned subsidiary of Locus Fermentation Solutions and had a $10 million Series A in 2018, confirmed Aldridge. The firm is currently considering a Series B with a value of around $28 million.