The following report is from AgFunder News:
US carbon credits startup Boomitra has raised $4 million funding in a round led by Norwegian fertilizer major Yara International.
Joining Yara Growth Ventures was US petroleum giant Chevron, which participated in the round through its VC arm Chevron Technology Ventures, along with several individual investors including Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang, former US Presidential candidate Tom Steyer, and Radicle Impact co-founder and ag impact investor Kat Taylor.
Boomitra founder and CEO Aadith Moorthy told AFN that the funds will mainly be used for investment in tech and talent.
There is a significant, growing backlog of projects waiting for analysis [and] in order to actually process and certify credits on the scale of millions of acres and many thousands of farmers, we need a much larger software platform and support team built out.
The San Jose, California-based startup is one of a growing number of players entering the nascent but rapidly developing low-carbon economy.
It’s aiming to remove atmospheric carbon “on a global scale” by tapping into agricultural-use soils and offering farmers an easy, cost-effective route to measuring soil carbon and participating in carbon credits markets.
To do this, Boomitra is taking a non-traditional tack – forgoing time-consuming, labor-intensive, and relatively expensive soil sample-testing in favor of ‘best estimates’ based on multiple remote data sources.
Soil carbon sequestration could offset as much of 20% of humanity’s annual carbon footprint, according to the UN – and when it comes to actually pushing ag carbon markets forward, pinpoint accuracy in measuring soil carbon is less important than getting as many farmers as possible involved, Moorthy argues.
Providing a directly [accurate] absolute soil carbon measurement is usually not very useful for interpreting the accuracy of the carbon credits themselves, so we usually provide uncertainty [ranges] on the carbon credits. Furthermore, accuracy varies by geographical region based on availability of ‘ground truth’ data, local terrain variability, and other factors.
Pivoting From Precision Ag
Using orbiting satellites rather than airplanes, drones, or in-field sensors to carry out imaging helps Boomitra keep equipment costs down.
We use many satellites, both public and private, along with our AI algorithms to measure absolute levels of soil moisture, soil organic carbon, and more. For training the AIs, we have used millions of real lab soil tests — ‘ground truth’ — that have been sourced from our various partners in each geographical region.
Once trained using this ‘ground truth,’ Boomitra’s AI models are able to achieve “reasonable accuracy” to 30-centimeter depths into the soil.
The startup is already working with thousands of farmers across 2 million acres on every continent where there’s agriculture, giving it a boost in terms of data resources. That’s because it started life in 2016 as ConserWater, a precision ag platform measuring soil moisture, nitrogen, and phosphorus levels, before pivoting to focus on soil carbon this year.
As a result of this captive user base, Boomitra measures carbon levels “on an almost weekly basis,” according to Moorthy, giving it “a great deal of insight into the changes happening on farms over the course of a season.”
And by relegating the role of in-field soil sampling in favor of AI modeling, Boomitra is able to pass its cost savings on to would-be customers – and stand out from the competition.
The final carbon removal credits that come out of the process are around $10 per ton, making them competitive with certain other kinds of carbon removal, like planting a tree. This is in contrast to other soil carbon programs that place prices of $20, $50, or even $100 per ton – and it’s due to our technology and our ground partners.
Ours is not a simple, conventional marketplace because there are a few different kinds of players: there are corporations who buy directly, and there are also brokers, retailers, and demand aggregators who do larger transactions. The reason is that we have a large supply — millions of tons production yearly — and the brokers enable it to be moved much faster.
Voluntary Vs Compliance Markets
For the global average farmer working on less than five acres of land, Boomitra is able to measure the potential carbon credits generated each year to within 15% of the precise figure, Moorthy claimed.
For larger land holdings, the uncertainty drops even lower because there are more data points for us to use. These values fall well beyond the project accuracy requirements of third-party standards bodies; usually, the accuracy requirements are interpreted by averaging across all farmers in a carbon project.
This further vindicates Boomitra’s remote-measuring approach, in the eyes of the startup’s new investors.
Something holding back the carbon markets in agriculture is how expensive and laborious it is to certify credits in a field.
Boomitra’s remote technology and marketplace have the opportunity to categorically change the way agri-carbon credits are monitored, packaged, and sold – all while enabling smallholder farmers with as few as two hectares to make money while sequestering carbon.
Erkki Aaltonen, head of Yara Growth Ventures, said in a statement.
Steyer and Taylor (who are married) said in a joint statement that Boomitra’s solution “enables growers of all sizes to participate in carbon markets, bringing meaningful revenue back to smallholder farmers globally and ensuring that the transition to regenerative agriculture is as inclusive and just as possible.”
Moorthy said that some of Boomitra’s biggest recruitment numbers are coming from India, Mexico, and East African countries at the moment. These farmers mostly fall into a ‘voluntary’ carbon market, which he differentiates from the ‘compliance’ markets that are mainly evolving in Australia, Canada, the EU, and — increasingly — the US, where farmers and enterprises alike are being pushed to participate because of environmental regulation.
Nevertheless, farmers across the board have been keen to check out Boomitra’s offering, he said.
We’ve found that onboarding farmers to a carbon project is actually much easier than selling them a SaaS software. This was part of the motivation for our pivot from precision ag insights to scaling carbon removal. We find paying farmers to do carbon sequestration is easier than having farmers pay you to use a software that enables them to become more efficient.
AUTHOR COMMENTARY
[20] O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called: [21] Which some professing have erred concerning the faith. Grace be with thee. Amen.1 Timothy 6:20-21
Now I know this may come as a bit of a shock to the eco-warriors, but they seem to forget about something that was taught to us in kindergarten: photosynthesis and the carbon cycle.
Plants rely on carbon dioxide in the air and carbon in the soil in order to survive. And, in return, the plants produce clean oxygen.
According to Outdoor Designs, here is the importance of carbon in the soil, and not solely the air:
Basically, the carbon cycle is the soil’s natural ability to produce its own carbon through production and death of plant roots. As roots die, and cycle, they deposit back into the soil as organic matter to continuously break down by microbial activity to carbon. Microbes then house is in the deposited carbon to reproduce and then feed on the next root death deposit. This cycle continues and continues, and as long as vegetation lives on the surface, the roots will continue to improve its soil condition (through the carbon cycle.)
Another gardening and farming blog succinctly explained it like this:
CO2 is probably the form of carbon we are most familiar with, but this only makes up a small portion of the gases in our atmosphere (0.04%). Significantly more carbon is stored in soils as ‘soil organic carbon’ (SOC), which is more commonly understood by gardeners as soil organic matter (plant and animal matter in various stages of decay).
Soil carbon is the backbone of soil fertility. The more carbon in the soil, the healthier the soil, and as a result the healthier the plant growth will be.
This is elementary level stuff. So, if these so-called naturalists and eco-warriors want to truly make the environment healthier, then they’d advocate going backwards.
Thus saith the LORD, Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls. But they said, We will not walk therein.
Jeremiah 6:16
But they don’t do that. Instead they are destroying God’s creation and design.
And the nations were angry, and thy wrath is come, and the time of the dead, that they should be judged, and that thou shouldest give reward unto thy servants the prophets, and to the saints, and them that fear thy name, small and great; and shouldest destroy them which destroy the earth.
Revelation 11:18
But the only way that such a practice can be mitigated and implemented, is the big-ag and big-tech companies, and the governments, must step in control the farm lands. Hence, what the report meant when it said “Soil carbon sequestration could offset as much of 20% of humanity’s annual carbon footprint, according to the UN.”
The process of removing a chemical from the environment and sequestering it in an organic or physical structure.
The action of forming a chelate or other stable compound with an ion or atom or molecule so that it is no longer available for reactions.
Seizing property that belongs to someone else and holding it until profits pay the demand for which it was seized.
Bill Gates Becomes Largest Farmland Owner In America
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Meat Industry Develops Smart Packaging That Interacts With The Environment
All of this is helping to fulfil Agendas 2030 and Absolute Zero, where reducing carbon emissions is one of the main alibis to control and mitigate everyone’s life: it has absolutely zero (no pun intended) to do with making the world cleaner and healthier – furthered evidence by the fact the world’s third largest oil manufacturer is investing in that. Wouldn’t a big oil company be threatened by these rising ag-carbon companies? And that is where you’d be wrong: they love ’em and are in bed with them. This was another point The WinePress made in our report about the World Economic Forum’s Agenda 2030 ambitions, and now you are seeing a prime example of that.
On top of that, seeing as carbon is crucial for plant life: can you imagine how badly the natural ecosystem will get wrecked? Can you fathom the effects that will have on the crops and the yields that are produced? They will be missing yet even MORE nutrients than the already are, due to the inefficient and mechanized processes that have taken over farming. And then what of the livestock that rely on these crops and feed? Perhaps it would make them sicker in the process.
This would then be yet another very subtle and crafty tactic Satan could employ to further aid in getting the masses off of meats – which is another large tentacle of Agenda 2030, and major Bible prophecy, as many WinePress readers have been routinely alerted to.
[1] Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils; [2] Speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron; [3] Forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth. [4] For every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused, if it be received with thanksgiving: [5] For it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer.1 Timothy 4:1-5
Bill Gates Pushes Even Harder For Nations To Adopt Artificial Beef
Burger King Launches Their Own Plant-Based Whopper As Bible Prophecy Continues To Unfold
Scientist Wants To Engineer Humans To Not Like Meat Anymore
Israel Launches World’s Largest Artificial Meat Factory As Bible Prophecy Continues To Unfold
Plant-Based Eggs Company Receives Millions In Funding
Scientists Create Lab-Grown Meat From Spinach
[7] Who goeth a warfare any time at his own charges? who planteth a vineyard, and eateth not of the fruit thereof? or who feedeth a flock, and eateth not of the milk of the flock? [8] Say I these things as a man? or saith not the law the same also? [9] For it is written in the law of Moses, Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn. Doth God take care for oxen? [10] Or saith he it altogether for our sakes? For our sakes, no doubt, this is written: that he that ploweth should plow in hope; and that he that thresheth in hope should be partaker of his hope. (1 Corinthians 9:7-10).
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One of the climate change movement’s ironies is that it talks obsessively about science and the “scientific consensus.” Still, collectively, the adherents suffer from one of the most common scientific reasoning flaws: confirmation bias. This happens when you point to anything supporting a hypothesis as evidence and discount anything contradicting the theory as an outlier. Ice melting means global warming. Ice forming is a natural, expected winter occurrence. The environmental apocalyptics say this doesn’t prove anything about what’s happening with the planet’s climate. And you know what? They are 100 percent correct.