Recover Ag

Farmers today enrich their soils by planting cover crops, reducing tillage and implementing diverse crop rotations. These practices also promise to generate income by storing carbon, which can be sold as credits. Recover Ag—an agricultural technology company—is making that promise practical with next-generation MMRV technology (Measuring, Monitoring, Reporting and Verification).

Through initiatives such as the California Soil Restoration Project, farmers adopt practices that build carbon in their soils while Recover Ag manages the measurement behind the scenes. The company turns conservation into consistent profit by making soil carbon accounting accurate, scalable and affordable.

So why has this been difficult until now?

The barrier lies in how soil carbon accounting is currently managed. Most “carbon farming” projects use a “measure and model” accounting method. They measure using random selection of sampling locations, with limited coverage, often just one soil core every 20 to 40 acres. But random sampling does not account for the variation in soil carbon concentration throughout a field, which is related to factors like slope, cardinal direction, drainage and vegetation. Measurement of soil carbon through random, sparse sampling has very high levels of uncertainty. That uncertainty has prompted the registries that verify soil carbon projects to apply a large “uncertainty deduction” to the number of credits issued by a project. The deducted credits do not generate revenue for farmers or project operators.

Current MMRV systems also rely on “process-based models” to generate predictions of soil carbon change without the high cost of soil sampling. Researchers have developed process-based models over the past few decades to simulate the behavior of a cropland ecosystem. They are very helpful for exploring research hypotheses, but they do not generate measurements that are accurate or precise enough for soil carbon credit accounting.

Recover Ag is introducing several innovations to make the “measure and model” carbon accounting method accurate and precise enough to work for carbon credit issuance. Instead of random sampling, Recover Ag utilizes satellite imaging and other data to identify the zones in a field that are most likely to have variations in soil carbon levels. Recover Ag creates sampling plans that optimize coverage of the zone. The resulting samples are more representative and collected at a higher density, which increases the accuracy of the field-level measurements.

Those samples are also used by Recover Ag’s advanced AI model, which integrates satellite imaging, soil type, weather and land management practices. The model generates predictions of soil carbon change with a median error of only three percent. Current process-based models have much higher error levels, as high as 80 percent.

For credit buyers, reduced uncertainty creates confidence that one credit equals one ton of Carbon Dioxide removed from the atmosphere. The distinction is critical because most credits on the market today are based on emissions avoidance. Recover Ag issues verified removal credits, the type increasingly demanded by corporations and regulators worldwide.

“The question we’re answering sounds simple, how much carbon is in the soil? But it has been almost impossible to answer affordably and accurately until now,” says Jeff Thiel, president and CEO. “By solving that problem, we are making carbon projects viable for more farmers.”

Recover Ag’s system will be initially utilized through a carbon farming project being launched in partnership with the Oakville Bluegrass Cooperative. Over 1,500 acres of vineyards and orchards have been planted with a new perennial grass cultivar that stores carbon in winter and goes dormant in the summer. In most vineyards, cover crops are tilled under by May to conserve water, while orchards are kept bare to ease nut harvesting. The cooperative’s perennial ground cover breaks that pattern, protecting soil without competing for water during the growing season.

The carbon gains from these practices are quantified with Recover Ag’s system and converted into verified credits, creating a new revenue stream for participating farmers. What was once financially risky is now practical and profitable.

F&B companies, ranging from wineries and breweries to global brands, face increasing pressure to understand and mitigate the carbon footprint of their supply chains. Until now, gathering reliable data across dozens or even hundreds of farms has been prohibitively expensive. Recover Ag makes that assessment affordable, whether the goal is to generate credits or to strengthen sustainability reporting.

By aligning the interests of farmers, companies and credit buyers, Recover Ag demonstrates how carbon markets can be both profitable and trustworthy. With tools that make soil carbon measurement accurate, affordable and scalable, the question is no longer whether carbon markets can work for farmers, but who is ready to participate.