The Carbon Question Remains in Agriculture
January 17, 2022 As most of you know by now, Paul Schrimpf has departed for another role within the agricultural community. As long-time readers know, Paul and I have for the past seven years weekly appeared together in an online video series called CropLife Retail Week. In these segments, we have typically presented the news of the week ag retailers might find interesting — along with conducting a few industry interviews and reporting from various trade shows along the way.
In recent months, another feature of CropLife Retail Week has been something called Fun with Numbers. This is where I would come up with some random figure or dollar amount and ask Paul to guess what it represented. Although Paul would occasionally get the right answer, his failure rate was probably around 70% if I had to speculate.
In fact, many industry friends have commented to Paul and me that one of the reasons they believe he decided to leave CropLife in the first place was because of his weekly embarrassment at getting the wrong answer on the Fun with Numbers segment of the video! True or not, it then seemed only fitting that I use this month’s column to torment our readers with their very own Fun with Numbers in print form!!
So, this column’s number is 57. And the clue is carbon. Any guesses?
For the past year now, carbon credits have been an extremely hot topic in agriculture. However, although plenty of conversation has taken place discussing the grower’s role in this effort, the question of where ag retailers fit into the equation hasn’t been entirely clear. Indeed, according to the 2021 CropLife 100 survey, 9% of respondents foresee “no role” for ag retailers in the carbon credits effort. Another 53% predict that ag retailers will only play “a small role” in agriculture’s carbon plans — perhaps doing nothing more than advising grower-customers on what crop inputs to use to reduce carbon emissions/capture carbon in the soil. Only 38% envision their companies playing “a large role” in the carbon credits program for growers, providing not only products and advice, but collecting loads of data to help customers make “informed decisions” about their carbon capture efforts.
But the larger CropLife readership is more positive on the ag retailers’ role in carbon credits. According to a survey of all readers, 57% say that the industry will play a “big role” in this sustainable agriculture initiative. Another 29% think ag retailers will play a “small role.” Only 3% foresee “no role” for the industry when it comes to carbon credits. (The remaining 11% had no opinion on the matter one way or another.)
So, did you get the right answer? Either way, drop me an email at [email protected] to let me know if you found this month’s Fun with Numbers article enlightening or annoying. And we will see you again next month . . . maybe.
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