On Tuesday, C2 Energy Capital LLC, a New York City-based investor and developer of distributed generation energy initiatives, whose $300 million portfolio of renewable assets spans more than 130 operational solar projects across 16 American states, announced that Land O’Lakes, Inc., one of the largest farmer-owned agriculture cooperatives in the United States and the producer of Land O’Lakes butter—has subscribed to three of its completed community solar garden projects near its Minnesota headquarters.
The solar projects total over 4 megawatts in size, and are installed with SolarEdge inverter technology, which is known for maximizing project energy yields and delivering the most advanced safety for rapid shutdown.
Anticipated to produce more than 2,000,000 kilowatt-hours per year, the site’s solar energy production is the equivalent of offsetting 1,537 metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions annually or equal to the amount of carbon sequester by 1,847 acres of forests in one year.
“Within the farming community, our stewardship is defined by continuous improvement of the air, soil, water, and safeguarding of our natural resources for generations,” said Bryan Crane, Senior Manager, Commodity & Energy Risk at Land O’Lakes. “We have seen firsthand that C2 Energy Capital shares that same kind of continuous commitment to the construction, maintenance, and operations of their solar farms and we are confident we are in good hands for decades to come.”
One of America’s premier agribusiness and food companies, Land O’Lakes is a member-owned cooperative whose operations run the gamut from agricultural production to consumer foods. With 2019 annual sales of $14 billion and 150 million acres of productive cropland in its network, Land O’Lakes ranks as one of the country’s largest cooperatives, its agriculture portfolio spanning Land O’Lakes Dairy Foods, Purina Animal Nutrition, WinField United and Truterra, LLC. The company does business in all 50 U.S. states and more than 60 countries.
It’s also—increasingly—an eager investor in progressive U.S. energy and telecommunications infrastructure projects that traditional investors have been slow to make in middle America. And it’s done so through a consistent, “Farmers First” approach.
Odd couple
In positioning itself in these emerging infrastructure field, Land O’Lakes has found an unlikely co-pilot. In July of this year, Land O’Lakes and Microsoft announced a multiyear strategic alliance to pioneer new innovations in agriculture and enhance the supply chain, expand sustainability practices for farmers and the food system, and close the rural broadband gap.
“As America’s farmers continue to deliver the world’s safest, most affordable food supply, they face an increasing number of obstacles that are beyond their control. The data-based, precision agriculture tools that we are building with Microsoft will provide the edge they need, but unreliable or nonexistent high-speed internet in rural areas keeps these tools out of reach for many. Through this alliance, we will work to address this need and help farmers remain profitable and sustainable,” said Beth Ford, president and CEO of Land O’Lakes, Inc.
Rural Broadband
Rural broadband access is a centerpiece of the partnership, as both Microsoft and Land O’Lakes have dedicated, existing initiatives to support rural connectivity. Microsoft’s Airband Initiative has worked around the country to eliminate the rural broadband gap through technology solutions, and Land O’Lakes’ American Connection Project has targeted policy advocacy and local action to achieve the same goal.
In partnership, the companies will now launch combined pilots leading to long-term programmatic solutions in rural communities. Combining Microsoft’s Airband program and specific locations within the Land O’Lakes owner network, broadband will be deployed to rural communities along with services including telehealth, educational resources and digital skilling.
Both companies are also advocating for policy changes to accelerate the availability of broadband in rural communities, including broadband mapping to fully understand who has and does not have access to broadband, and federal funding in upcoming legislation.
Noting that remote work, education and healthcare are out of reach for people living in rural communities without online access, Microsoft and Land O’Lakes have banded together to turn on free public Wi-Fi at more than 150 locations in 19 states, using a mix of technologies, including fixed wireless, and supplying internet service providers with necessary hardware.
AgTech
The Microsoft-Land O’Lakes partnership also encompasses an AgTech platform, built on Microsoft Azure, to unite Land O’Lakes’ AgTech portfolio, such as WinField United’s R7® Suite precision farming software, its Data Silo cloud-based farm data aggregator, and Truterra™ Insights Engine for sustainable farm management practices under a single architecture.
Integrating all of these applications into a Microsoft-powered platform will enable Land O’ Lakes farmers to test fields, support more predictable decisions for placement of crop inputs such as seeds and treatments, maximize yield potential by planting the right seed varieties and nutrients, optimize fertilizer investments, and ensure accurate output ratio to meet demand properly, all while lowering the farm carbon footprint.
Digital Dairy
Microsoft and Land O’Lakes are also disrupting traditional dairy production. Their “Digital Dairy” initiative uses edge computing to capture data from farms with poor internet coverage, along with AI to provide data-driven insights for dairy producers. Digital Dairy will combine multiple data streams—including weather, feed management and animal health—derived from sensors and third-party applications to help dairy producers improve profit potential, adopt conservation practices and reduce waste by feeding livestock only what they need and ensuring milk supply doesn’t go bad in the supply chain.
Digital Dairy will also provide “advanced traceability” throughout the Land O’Lakes supply chain, providing transparency to milk, butter and cheese, ensuring consumer confidence that foods are of the highest quality and sustainably sourced.
Carbon credits
Finally, the company is also exploring ways for its farmers to develop supplementary revenue streams by trading carbon credits on a blockchain-powered marketplace. Through Truterra, LLC, the sustainability business that Land O’Lakes launched in 2016, the company in October announced a new pilot project with Nori, a Seattle-based blockchain technology firm that is developing voluntary carbon removal marketplace.
The pilot will use Land O’ Lakes’ Truterra Insights platform to capture precise carbon removal impact data at the individual farm level, that can be translated into tradable (monetizable) carbon credits for farmers. The ability to do this easily—to demonstrate how soil health measures have reduced a farm’s carbon footprint–has been a “pain point” in developing the technology infrastructure for a carbon credit marketplace at scale.
Currently, farmers can be paid up to $15 per ton of carbon sequestered in the soil on Nori’s marketplace.
The companies hope the pilot will make it easier for growers to understand what they have to gain in a carbon market, and to use that information to make decisions about their stewardship practices. Under the pilot, farmers retain full ownership of their data, while Nori provides guidance on how much data to use to qualify for carbon credits.
“There’s a lot of excitement and, frankly, some big promises out there about carbon markets and the potential for farmers to derive revenue from them,” said Amanda Neely, Truterra’s Senior Manager of Technology and Innovation. “But private sector markets are still in their early stages and there are still many challenges to address before they can scale and become mainstream.”
It’s a path to scalability that may not be as smooth as butter—but pretty close.
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