Bruno Basso

Why this matters: Builds trust in carbon markets. This science-based baseline system dramatically improves accuracy, helping ensure carbon credits are credible and truly reflect climate benefits. Enables real climate impact by accounting for both soil carbon and nitrous oxide emissions, the approach delivers a full, net climate assessment. Scales across millions of acres. Tested on 46 million hectares in 12 Midwest states, this approach is ready for large-scale adoption, helping farmers transition to regenerative practices with confidence and clarity. New research from Michigan State University, led by agricultural systems scientist Bruno Basso, addresses a major problem in agricultural carbon markets: how to set an accurate starting point, or “baseline,” for measuring climate benefits. Most current systems use fixed baselines that don’t account for the soil carbon changes and emissions that would occur if business-as-usual practices were maintained on fields. Such inaccuracies can distort carbon credit calculations and undermine market trust. “The choice of baseline can dramatically influence carbon credit generation; if the model is inaccurate, too many or too few credits may be issued, calling market legitimacy into question,” said Basso, a John A. Hannah Distinguished Professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, the Department of Plant, Soil and Microbial Sciences and the W.K. Kellogg Biological Station at MSU. “Our dynamic baseline approach provides flexible scenarios that capture the comparative climate impacts of soil organic carbon, or SOC, sequestration and nitrous oxide emissions from business-as-usual practices and the new regenerative system.” The research, published in the journal Scientific Reports, covers 46 million hectares of cropland across the U.S. Midwest, provides carbon market stakeholders with a scalable, scientifically robust crediting framework. It offers both the investment-grade credibility and operational simplicity needed to expand regenerative agriculture. Regenerative agriculture and carbon markets Regenerative agriculture includes practices like cover cropping, reduced or no tillage, diversified rotations, adaptive grazing and agroforestry. These methods restore soil health, enhance biodiversity, increase system resilience and help mitigate climate change by building SOC and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Carbon markets offer a promising financial mechanism to accelerate regenerative transitions. By compensating farmers for verified climate benefits, they can act as either offset markets (for external buyers) or inset markets (within agricultural supply chains). However, the integrity of these markets hinges on reliable, science-based measurement, reporting and verification systems that integrate modeling, field data and remote sensing. A breakthrough multi-model ensemble approach To overcome limitations in traditional modeling, the MSU scientists and colleagues from different institutions in the U.S. and Europe deployed a multi-model ensemble, or MME, framework, using eight validated crop and biogeochemical models across 40,000 locations in 934 counties spanning 12 Midwestern states. The MME avoids model selection bias, lowering uncertainty in soil carbon predictions from 99% (with single models) to just 36% (with the MME). “This is a game changer for carbon markets,” said Basso. “It delivers a level of accuracy and scalability — from individual fields to entire regions — that current systems lack.” The MME platform also enables the creation of precalculated, practice-based dynamic baselines, reducing the burden of data collection and easing participation for producers. Improved mitigation assessments Unlike many approaches that consider only SOC, the MSU lead team’s study evaluates both SOC sequestration and nitrous oxide emissions to determine net climate impact. “This comprehensive assessment ensures that carbon credits represent true climate mitigation,” said Tommaso Tadiello, postdoctoral fellow in MSU’s Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences and co-author of the study. “A practice that increases soil carbon may improve soil health,” added Basso, “but it may not deliver actual climate benefits if it simultaneously increases nitrous oxide emissions. Our method provides a full accounting of the net climate effect.” The research team found that the combination of no-till and cover cropping delivered an average net mitigation of 1.2 metric tons of carbon dioxide-equivalent per hectare annually, potentially abating 16.4 teragrams of carbon dioxide-equivalent across the study area. This research was supported by the Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, U.S. Department of Energy’s Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center, National Science Foundation Long-Term Ecological Research, Builders Initiative, The Soil Inventory Project, Generation IM Foundation, Walton Family Foundation, Morgan Stanley Sustainable Solutions Collaborative and MSU AgBioResearch.

MSU’s Bruno Basso outlines key steps the grain industry can take — with public support — to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by more than 70% over the next decade Michigan State University Foundation Professor Bruno Basso has long been a believer in the power of digital agriculture. For years, he’s worked to show how emerging digital tools and technologies — things like drones, robotics, satellite imagery and computer models of soil and plant growth — can help farmers promote sustainability without sacrificing profits. Now, in addition to belief, he also has concrete numbers. Basso, an ecosystems scientist in the College of Natural Science and the W.K. Kellogg Biological Station, has helped outline how America’s grain industry can shrink its carbon footprint by 71% by 2030. The team — which included researchers at Duke University, the U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory and Benson Hill, a sustainable food technology company — published its findings online on June 21 in the journal the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Basso, who recently won a $250,000 award for sustainability innovations, sat down with MSUToday to talk about how farmers can achieve those reductions and how the public can help. The full article is attached and well worth the read.  Basso tackles tough questions such as: How big is this problem? How much of our greenhouse gas emissions come from agriculture? Your new paper focuses on grains in particular. How big of an emitter is grain production, especially compared to other ag sectors such as livestock, which tends to get more attention? You talked about getting a 23% reduction by better management of fertilizer. How do we get to a 70% reduction by 2030? What are the obstacles that we need to overcome by 2030? Are you a journalist looking to cover this topic then let us help. Bruno Basso is available to speak with media, simply click on his icon now to arrange an interview today.