US-based carbon credit registry, BCarbon, has issued its first international soil carbon credits in the UK, as part of an initiative to reverse climate change by using farmland to pull harmful carbon from the atmosphere.

The transaction, issued to Future Food Solutions, certifies soil carbon sequestration in no-till barley cropland using cover crops. Future Food Solutions created the Futures Carbon Bank to sell credits on the voluntary carbon market.

“This partnership with Future Food Solutions has been particularly exciting for BCarbon,” said Jim Blackburn, CEO of BCarbon. “We are today announcing our first international carbon credits in what we intend to be the first steps toward removing significant amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, which is, after all, the goal here.”

Carbon credit trading is expected to hit US$50bn by 2030. Multinational information and analytics giant RELX bought the first tons of verified carbon credits, which were generated by a single farm on the Yorkshire Wolds in northeast England.

Although sequestration will vary according to the weather, cover crop and soil type, on average in the Yorkshire region, a hectare of cover crop and no-till farming will deliver 2 to 3 tons of carbon to trade. Upon measurement under the BCarbon system, project developers such as Future Foods and their farmers then receive money through the sale of their carbon credits.

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