Farming: First Milk seals soil carbon deal

The milk co-operative, First Milk has announced that it has invested in soil carbon measurement company, Agricarbon, acquiring a five per cent stake in the business with the aim of helping farmers sequester more CO2 in their fields.

Agricarbon is a Dundee-based start-up founded by Scottish farming entrepreneur, Stewart Arbuckle along with Annie Leeson, data services entrepreneur and decarbonisation expert, with Alan Strong providing the technology commercialisation expertise.

Agricarbon aims to accelerate a widespread transition to more proactive soil stewardship, by unlocking the value of soil carbon sequestration as a major carbon sink and make a material contribution – this decade – to averting climate catastrophe.

The tech company said it offers a unique soil carbon measurement service using proprietary technology to automate the most robust scientific methodologies for intensive, direct soil sample collection and analysis, at a fraction of the usual cost.

To date, Agricarbon has been operating a large-scale pilot in partnership with First Milk and Nestlé, building an extensive and robust soil carbon baseline for the First Milk farms involved. The pilot covers over 7,000 hectares of land and incorporates data from 40,000 soil samples, making this one of the largest datasets of real-world soil carbon measurements in the world.

Agricarbon’s customers will use this data to confirm soil carbon baselines and evidence the capture and storage of atmospheric carbon dioxide into regeneratively farmed soils.