Ep 3 - Mitchell Hora: A New Scoreboard for Agriculture

The Business of Soil Health

Mitchell is a 7th-generation Iowa farmer and the Founder/CEO of Continuum Ag, a soil health data intelligence company. He’s one of the leading evangelists for scoring crops according to their Carbon Intensity as a measure of climate impact that’s strongly aligned with how producers operate.

Mitchell shares his journey into regenerative agriculture, starting from his seventh-generation family farm in Iowa and discussing how early mistakes with cover cropping fueled his drive to ensure that farmers have the data and technical support necessary for success. He emphasizes that soil health practices can deliver significant long-term benefits, including reduced input costs, increased resilience, and lower environmental impact, but stresses the importance of farmer-to-farmer technical assistance over government-led programs.

Mitchell also highlights Continuum Ag’s role in helping farmers understand their carbon intensity scores, which are becoming critical as markets and policies like the Inflation Reduction Act incentivize low-carbon farming practices. He explains how these scores can drive new economic opportunities for farmers, particularly in the biofuels sector. Mitchell is optimistic about the potential for agriculture to shift from being part of the problem to being a key part of the climate solution, as more farmers adopt regenerative practices that are backed by data and verified for legitimacy.

Notable Quotes

(00:05:33) The corn just looked like crap too. I've got some pictures of it and stuff, just nasty. But a lot of farmers run into those issues where we're planting corn, that's a grass, into a cover crop, namely cereal rye, which is used more than 90 % of the time across the Midwest. But cereal rye, also a grass, said they are in competition to each other. And we got what's known as the carbon penalty, where we had too much carbon biomass out there, tried planting corn into it, and just screwed things up...It was our fault. We didn't know what the heck we were doing. Our soil health was not ready for it, meaning our biological activity was not great. We had been no tilling, but we were conventionally farming, right? With plenty of pesticides and plenty of synthetic fertilizer. And just no till alone doesn't get you where you need to go.

(00:08:51) We've changed our system to revolve around this cover crop. And the cover crop is part of the program that now we're able to have huge success with it. We’ve decreased our need for fertilizer and pesticides significantly. We've reduced fertilizer by about 50 percent. We've reduced our pesticides by about 75 percent. We've reduced our need for federal crop insurance for any farm subsidies for any replant. We haven't had a replant in years. We haven't had any crop insurance claims in years. We're just so much more resilient.

You don't have to lose money in year one. Now, it might take some off-farm money to offset the cost and to maintain and to break even in those first couple of years, but you can absolutely be money ahead very, very soon into this journey as long as you don't screw it up like we did, and that's why the technical support is just so critical

I really worry about how fast this is going. And I know that regulation is the wrong way to do it, because the technical support is not readily available at scale. The logistics, the logistical support not ready at scale, namely cover crop seed, the ability to apply all these cover crops, the labor to get it all done. Those infrastructure components don't exist today. They've progressed a long way, but like, It takes time to let that stuff really get going and let supply and demand just fuel it.

(00:11:39) The real technical assistance needs to happen farmer to farmer. That's how farmers learn best anyway. And that's becoming more readily available. I think social media has helped with that. There's a gazillion different field days and events and social media connecting people to really tell their story and learn from each other. But we've got to make sure that it's that farmer to farmer technical assistance that is really bolstered up.

(00:17:14)In order to help farmers adopt these regenerative ag practices, especially cover cropping and no tilling and implementing more diversity, the biggest two concerns always boil down to logistics. How do I do it? How do I change? How do I make my equipment work? How do I work within my labor? How do I make this work for my soils? It's logistics and it's economics. How do I not lose yield and lose money? This stuff costs money. How do I cover that cost and how do I justify spending the money? And as you think of it as a long-term return, you know, long time to get real return on investment, as farmers, most of them are operating under a one-year operating note and one-year rental agreements and such. How do you look to invest long-term when you're living in an annual financial cycle?

(00:20:18)Now with the CI thing, I think it's the very first time that there's a new scoreboard for agriculture. The scoreboard has always been the yield monitor. The point system has always been the bushel. The financial system has always been getting paid a commodity price by the bushel and therefore you got to have volume. And we have the yield monitor, the scoreboard, and we could see what is scoring the most points and that's what's driven on every pass. That's what drives the decisions. Well, now for the first time, we've created a new scoreboard with our topsoil tool. The scoring mechanism is carbon intensity in the GREET model and with 45Z coming through. There's finally a new scoring mechanism where farmers can earn points directly and earn financials directed from the points that they've created and the lower the carbon intensity score the more financial reward you can garner

But what I'm so bullish on here is the impact that this is going to make in non-biofuel markets because they're going to have to respond. Most of my corn today goes to feed pigs, but there's no tax credits for low-carbon pigs, even though 65 % of the carbon footprint of the pork industry comes from the Scope 3, the feed. So if the pork industry is going to decarbonize, they've got to address their biggest component of their carbon footprint, which is the grain, the feed.

(00:40:35)We're getting hundreds of farmers a week coming in. And we're spent, I think last week we spent like maybe $1,500 on marketing. Like, that's it. So like amazing that, and now we're doing a lot of speaking, we've got our dealer network, we've got a lot of momentum and buildup, right? But still like farmers are really excited about this. They're coming to the table, they want to help. They want to help.

[Regarding offsets...] I was there when we wrote the protocol for Climate Action Reserve like I saw how the sausage is made and therefore I know we took those rules from forestry from other stuff we copied and pasted and said this what we're gonna have to do for ag and it just doesn't work that way.

But I love carbon intensity because there's no contracts. There's no rules coming from these registries. It's simply, here's your bushels you produced that year. What were the practices that went into those bushels? That goes into the carbon intensity score from the GREET model. And when you sell the bushels, you sell the score and now it's part of the next person's score. That those bushels are part of their scope three carbon footprint. And my data goes with those bushels. They're able to update their reports. Done deal. No contracts, no nothing. I get paid upon delivery and I have full flexibility.

So really excited for those opportunities there for farmers to tell their story and go from being part of the problem, which we absolutely are today, right? Agriculture is part of the problem today. That is a fact. But we are doing a good job and reducing our impact and can really be a huge piece of the solution. And now there's some data to be able to back that up and real opportunity coming to fruition.