Forestry "Carbon Credits"...

Caver Dave

Caver Dave

Just holdin' it down here in BFV
Moderator
Joined
Mar 10, 2005
Location
Hooterville (24171)
Looking for information, first/second hand experience or resources...

- Initially saw a click-bait ad that said [paraphrased]: "we'll pay you to maintain your forested land". It's from "Family Forest Carbon Program", funded by those wanting to purchase "Carbon Offsets", for a minimum of 30 acres?
Basically, they have 2 rates: $230/acre over OR with just applying for farm/tract # (whether it's accepted or not, but has been on our radar) $275/acre.

Contract is 20 years, payout is 20% 1st year, 10% 2nd/3rd year, and balance over the next 17 years.
Not huge amount of $$ (about $17-19Kish over 20 years with our 72 forested acres), but would definitely fund (partially or in whole) "things" around the place...

This got me thinking about whether this aligned with going rates on the "carbon credit market" or most likely, contractually locks you into a "good" rate today, that is expected to only rise in the coming years?
Making me think it'd be "better" to manage/"sell" those credits myself year to year without any long(er) term contracts
The going rate appears to be "$30- 50/tCO2 (metric tonne)", but no guesstimates/easy answer of what an acre of forested land is good for...
 
cyoung said:
Interesting. I've been getting those same ads and wondered if it is legit. I'll be interested if anyone has experience.
Click to expand...
AFAICT, they are legit.
However, the contract verbiage is sketchy in terms of whether the per acre payment would increase should the credit/acre price raise dramatically.

Found a thread on Reddit that answered some of the questions, where attorneys recommending holding *ALL* the funds in escrow because the brokers hands will immediately go out should anything happen (death, next owner not wanting to participate, fire/flood/"straight line wind" damage, or logging over the 25% outlined).
Others in that thread suggested looking into various NRC/CSP grants that only run year to year (vs. 20-40 years)... as anything with .gov, likely a PITA. IF I can get my head wrapped around the "hoops" (after discussion with local USDA rep), may try it once... and let you know
 
Yea, keep us posted. I have some land up here in Virginia I would love to try and figure out how to use to make money? My buddy has a farm in Carolina that he has in some federal program. He just thined it about 4 years ago. Then just cut the rest about a year ago. They are paying him to cut and replant his farm? Plus he made the money off his timber? Had to go in and girdle a few trees and plant a certain amount of acres in pollinators. You get graded on what you have done on your land.
He is trying to figure out how to do that on some of his land up here in Virginia.
 
20 years is perfect for pine.
 
Back
Top