Bayer Carbon Program
Frequently Asked Questions

ForGround is a new, farmer-first platform that supports growers in considering, adopting and expanding regenerative agriculture practices. Joining ForGround unlocks access to expert agronomic support and exclusive discounts – plus opportunities to earn income for implementing no-till, strip-till, or cover crops through the Bayer Carbon Program.

It's flexible and simple: you choose which practices you enroll in for each field, and then we help you implement those practices. We also take care of the practice verification, soil sampling and more.

And we want you to benefit from the expanding carbon markets. If prices increase, then your rewards may increase too. You get certainty, whatever you achieve: you're rewarded for the verified practices you adopt, period. There's no need to worry about how many tons of carbon you generate.

Eligible states: Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, and Wisconsin.

The following regenerative agriculture practices are eligible under the 2024 Bayer Carbon Program:

• Cover crops: You intentionally plant and grow a crop of grass, small grain, legumes, or brassicas or other broadleaves (or a combination of those crops) on the field after the harvest of the primary cash crop until the time of planting the next primary cash crop for the purpose of seasonal soil protection or soil improvement. The cover crop practice does not permit the removal of cover crop biomass from the field (such as through burning, baling, harvesting, or grazing). For more information, please refer to NRCS CPS Code 340 or other source Bayer may provide.
• No-till: You directly plant each crop on the field into the untilled seedbed of the prior crop. The no-till practice means that no tillage event (including vertical tillage) may occur on the field. For more information, please refer to NRCS CPS Code 329 or other source Bayer may provide.
• Strip-till: You only partially till the field ahead of planting through the creation of residue-free strips of soil, which must be approximately six to eight inches wide and four to eight inches deep. The strip-till practice excludes any use of vertical tillage or other full-width tillage practices and means that no full tillage event may occur on the field. For more information, please refer to NRCS CPS Code 329 or other source Bayer may provide.

Accepted cash crops in the 2024 Bayer Carbon Program: corn, soybeans, wheat, barley, sorghum, oats, rye, millet, dry beans, lentils, peas, and chickpeas.

The Nitrogen Management Program “add-on” provides growers with the opportunity to earn $4/acre, when the field is planted with corn, for applying select nitrification inhibitors and achieving a 5% reduction in the application of synthetic nitrogen. To enroll in the Nitrogen Management Program, growers must select the “add on” option during field enrollment.²

Key requirements for participation in the Nitrogen Management Program include the following:

• The field is newly enrolled in the Bayer Carbon Program, as of 2024, for no-till/strip-till and/or cover crops;
• The use of nitrification inhibitors on the field must have been consistently adopted on or after August 1, 2019;
• A nitrification inhibitor is applied on the field and includes one of the following active ingredients: 2-chloro-6 (trichloromethyl)-pyridine (Nitrapyrin), dicycandiamide (DCD), or 3,4-dimethylpyrazole phosphate (DMPP); and
• The field achieves a 5% reduction in the use of synthetic nitrogen compared to the average synthetic nitrogen application for the field. The average application for the field will be calculated by reviewing the field’s synthetic nitrogen application data for the 4 years prior to the date in which consistent adoption of nitrification inhibitors on the field began.

Growers will be required to submit the necessary records or data to help Bayer verify that they met the Nitrogen Management Program requirements (e.g., receipts, application documents, fertilizer application amounts, etc.).

If you enroll a field in the Bayer Carbon Program in 2024, this will be the first year of the field’s 5-year program performance period. Bayer may, at its discretion, provide you with an option to renew the program performance period for each field for an additional five-year renewal period, up to three times per field.

If Bayer offers, and you agree to all three renewal options for a field, the total program performance period for that field would be 20 years. As always, practices must continue to be performed during the 10-year retention period. Carbon credit buyers require that emission reductions be long-lasting. Continued performance during the retention period may further improve soil health and other benefits associated with practice implementation.

See the Bayer Carbon-Smart Practices Master Agreement and attached program terms for further details.

As much as possible. You choose which climate-smart practices you implement and which fields you enroll. Then, once you start seeing the benefits, you can add fields each year, subject to approval. You won’t be penalized for circumstances out of your control, such as if conditions don’t allow you to implement reduced tillage or cover crops, and there are no penalties for not participating in a given year. Instead, you are paid for the years that we can verify you were able to implement your selected practices. If, despite your best efforts, your cover crop fails due to factors outside your control (such as a weather event), you’ll still qualify for payment, but may need to provide additional evidence.

It is your responsibility to notify Bayer if, in the 10 years before you adopted the selected practices on the field, the field was enrolled in other programs that generate carbon assets or the field participated in a stewardship or conservation program, such as the USDA Conservation Reserve Program or the USDA Environmental Quality Incentives Program. After a field is enrolled in the Bayer Carbon Program, it may not be enrolled in other carbon asset generation programs; however, participation in stewardship or conservation programs is generally allowed if carbon assets are not created and such participation is permitted by the other program(s). Please reach out to carbonprogram@bayer.com to verify program compatibility with the Bayer Carbon Program.

The Bayer Carbon Program is both protocol and model agnostic. We may potentially work with any of the existing protocols governing agricultural carbon asset generation as well as any existing commercial carbon accounting models.

Bayer may employ the greenhouse gas emission reductions or removals to generate assets, such as carbon offset credits, that can be sold to companies or individuals to offset greenhouse gas emissions or, if a grower enrolled in the Bayer Carbon Program is located within a specific company’s supply chain, these emissions reductions or removals may be accounted for within a company’s supply chain greenhouse gas emissions accounting or used to support a carbon neutral certification.

Each year, a grower enrolled in the Bayer Carbon Program will need to:

• Fill out and submit to Bayer agronomic information for each field enrolled. Such information may include but is not limited to the timing of planting and harvest, total yield, cover crop planting dates, cover crop termination method, and cover crop termination dates (if applicable), tillage style and timing (if applicable), and any applications of fertilizer, manure, and irrigation (if applicable).
• Take a geo-tagged photo on each enrolled field showing the enrolled practice(s).
• Submit qualifying practice evidence annually for each enrolled practice (i.e., cover crop receipt, custom strip-till planting receipt, etc.)
• For any fields newly enrolled in the Bayer Carbon Program, a minimum of 4 years of historic agronomic data for such field to set the pre-practice change baseline for the carbon model. This is a one-time requirement for a given field and in subsequent years the only agronomic information needed will be for the current year (as detailed above).
• Fill out and submit to Bayer the annual attestation form. This includes attesting to the practices performed and the agronomic data submitted.
• A Bayer Carbon Account Specialist will help growers submit this information to ensure program requirements are met for payment.

The data you provide or make available as part of the Bayer Carbon Program and Nitrogen Management Program will only be accessed and used for the purposes you permit, such as the purposes you consented to during enrollment and in the Bayer Carbon-Smart Practices Master Agreement, as well as the terms of use or privacy statement you accepted when you created an account with our affiliate, Climate LLC.

We pay up to $6 for the adoption of no-till/strip-till practices and $6 for the adoption of cover crop practices, with available practices subject to state level eligibility requirements. We may also pay you a historical practice payment at the same rate if you performed the selected practices up to four years prior to the year of field enrollment. If you enroll fields in the 2024 Bayer Carbon Program, you may also be able to participate in the Nitrogen Management Program “add-on” and earn $4/acre, when the field is planted with corn, for applying select nitrification inhibitors and achieving a 5% reduction in the application of synthetic nitrogen.².

Bayer will pay participating growers the payments due under the Bayer Carbon Program and Nitrogen Management Program no more than 30 days after the date of final verification that the selected practices have been performed. Payment for the performance of historical practices, if applicable, is also subject to confirmation that that carbon assets have been generated. See the Bayer Carbon-Smart Practices Master Agreement and attached program terms for further details.¹

During the Bayer Carbon Program term, we will periodically evaluate the current market price for a carbon assets. If we determine, in our sole discretion, that there has been a substantial increase in the current market price for a carbon asset, we will share part of the increased value with you by increasing the payment rate for applicable practices if the field meets the relevant eligibility criteria.

* Bayer will increase the payment rate for applicable practices on eligible fields if there has been a substantial increase in the market price of carbon assets (as periodically evaluated and determined by Bayer).

If the selected practices are not performed in a given calendar year, you must promptly notify Bayer. Bayer will not pay you the practices payment for calendar years in which the practices were not performed and Bayer may remove the field(s) from the Bayer Carbon Program, exercise its termination rights, or grant an exception. If you selected the cover crop practice for a field and Bayer determines that you were prevented from planting and growing the cover crop because of factors outside of your control (for example, you planted the cover crop, but it failed due to a weather event), you may still be eligible for payment, but submission of additional documentation may be required. See the Bayer Carbon-Smart Practices Master Agreement and attached program terms for further details.

If the Nitrogen Management Practice is not performed and/or you do not plant corn on a field in a given calendar year, Bayer will not pay you the practice payment for such calendar year. See the Bayer Carbon-Smart Practices Master Agreement and attached program terms for further details.

We do require you to have a Climate FieldView™ account in order enroll in ForGround, the Bayer Carbon Program, and the Nitrogen Management Program.

ForGround participants that enroll between January 1, 2024 and December 31, 2024 and agree to associate their FieldView™ Plus or Premium account with ForGround, will receive a $100 discount off the current list price of FieldView™ Plus (currently $299) or FieldView™ Premium (currently $799) valid for one-year. When you enroll a minimum of 250 eligible acres in the Bayer Carbon Program, part of ForGround by Bayer, you’ll receive a 12-month subscription to FieldView^TM PLUS, a $299 value – free of charge.³ While Bayer has a broad selection of industry-leading crop protection, seed and seed treatment products, you are not required to purchase crop protection, seed or seed treatment products to participate in ForGround, the Bayer Carbon Program, or the Nitrogen Management Program.

Yes, you can drop out of the program with no claw backs or penalties. Farmer must inform Bayer that they wish to terminate.