Kelly Garrett runs his 7,000-acre farm in western Iowa with the same attitude he brings to a game of golf. He wants a hole in one every time — i

The US is about to go all-in on paying farmers and foresters to trap carbon

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2021-07-07 20:00:05

Kelly Garrett runs his 7,000-acre farm in western Iowa with the same attitude he brings to a game of golf. He wants a hole in one every time — in other words, perfection.

He is the seventh generation of his family to live and work on the rolling hills of Garrett Land and Cattle in Arion, Iowa, tending to lush fields of corn and soybean crops and raising cattle for beef. In no-frills jeans and work boots, Garrett looks like a man who has spent his life farming. The eyes under his bald head have wrinkles nestled into their corners, hinting at decades of squinting in the sun.

Garrett harbors a seemingly unquenchable urge for progress on the farm that he runs with his father. If his soil could be healthier, his crop yield higher, his profit margins wider, he makes it happen. It’s this need to be at the cutting edge of agriculture that drove him to co-found XtremeAg.farm, a website where Garrett and six other farmers review agricultural tools and practices. Partner companies pay them to screen products and report to their readers whether they’re worth the effort and money or just agricultural snake oil.

It was through this side gig that Garrett first seriously considered carbon capture. He figured he could tweak his agricultural techniques to suck planet-warming carbon out of the atmosphere and get paid by corporations looking to “offset” their carbon emissions. Big businesses often find it cheaper to pay somebody like Garrett to trap more carbon than it is for them to change their ways.