Carbon farming

Carbon farming is reshaping modern agriculture. Learn how regenerative practices and advanced modelling tools turn farmland into one of the world’s most effective climate solutions.

Carbon Farming: The Next Frontier in Climate-Smart Agriculture

Half of the world’s land is used to grow food. Intensive cultivation inevitably leads to depleted soils, declining fertility, and rising greenhouse gas emissions. Yet today, a new agricultural paradigm is emerging—carbon farming, a system of regenerative practices designed to capture and stabilize carbon directly in the soil.

Carbon farming includes:

• minimal or no-tillage systems,

• carbon-rich organic amendments,

• diverse crop rotations,

• cover cropping,

• agroforestry models,

• and full-farm system redesign based on soil health metrics.

These practices not only sequester carbon but also increase yields, strengthen resilience, and restore degraded land. In many regions, smallholder farmers adopting regenerative systems are outperforming large industrial farms in both stability and ecological impact.

Scientific Foundation: Decades of Soil Carbon Research

For more than two decades, Colorado State University (CSU) has been a global leader in soil carbon science and agroecosystem modelling.
CSU pioneered the concept of ecosystem modelling in the 1960s–70s, long before climate-smart agriculture became mainstream.

A major contributor is Keith Paustian, University Distinguished Professor of Soil and Crop Science.
His team developed biogeochemical models that simulate carbon and nitrogen flows in agricultural soils, helping identify practical, field-ready strategies for increasing carbon sequestration and reducing emissions.

Soil Metrics: Turning Science Into Scalable Solutions

In 2019, Paustian and his colleagues founded Soil Metrics, now one of the leading providers of integrated soil carbon and GHG modelling technologies.
Their mission: support global regenerative agriculture using data-driven, scientifically validated tools.

Soil Metrics was built to meet growing demand from farmers, corporations, and sustainability programs seeking reliable ways to measure climate impact at scale.

“The most promising path to widespread adoption of carbon agriculture is collaboration—between scientists, growers, policymakers, and industry,” says Paustian.

Advanced Modelling Tools That Transform Agriculture

CSU developed one of the world’s most sophisticated agricultural modelling platforms, integrating:

• weather data

• soil characteristics

• land-use history

• field operations

• crop management practices

Among its best-known tools is COMET, developed with the U.S. Department of Agriculture—an online platform farmers use to estimate carbon sequestration, fuel use, and emissions reductions in real time.

Beyond individual farms, the DayCent model (also developed at CSU) now supports national greenhouse gas inventories and corporate sustainability programs.

Climate-Smart Food Production in Practice

One example: Post Holdings, a major food manufacturer, uses Soil Metrics’ technology to validate the carbon reduction claims of its climate-friendly snack brand, Airly® Oat Clouds™.

Oats grown with carbon-sequestering practices -and emissions offset through precise modelling - allow the company to demonstrate real climate impact directly to consumers.

What Comes Next: The Global Scaling of Carbon Farming

CSU’s research is now expanding into new frontiers of regenerative agriculture, including:

• maximizing farmlands’ role as carbon sinks,

• reducing nitrous oxide and methane emissions,

• improving resilience to climate variability,

• building universally adaptable regenerative models.

The long-term vision is clear:
make climate-smart, regenerative agriculture the global standard rather than the exception.

With carbon farming gaining momentum, agriculture can shift from being a major emitter to becoming one of the world’s most powerful climate stabilization tools.