American Sustainable Business Institute, Inc.: The Growing GRASS Project

Start Date

Jun-23

Eligible Practices

• Prescribed Grazing

Eligible Counties (in NE)

Statewide

Payment Schedule

At least 1000 producers will receive research participation payments for providing program evaluation data to research teams. These payments have been budgeted at $25 per hour x 20 hours for a total of $500 per producer per year, except Year 5, when it is $25/hour x 10 hours totaling $250 per producer.

Price

During the pilot phase, payments will be $30/head of qualifying beef or bison.

Contract Length

The Partnership for Climate Smart Commodities program is a five year program starting in February 2023.

Data Collected at Enrollment

All projects are required to include plans to (1) quantify greenhouse gas (GHG) benefits and (2) monitor/verify those benefits over time.

Lead Organization

American Sustainable Business Institute, Inc., partnered with Roots of Change, American Grassfed Association, Other Half Processing SBC, Pure Strategies, IC-FOODS, Autocase, UC Davis Food Systems Labs, Textile Exchange, Regenerative Rising, Lookin.to

Outcome Estimation

GRASS uses information gathered from on-farm/ranch inspections conducted by grassfed, animal welfare, organic and regenerative markets to verify the regenerative equivalency claims. As long as the inspection verifies 100% grassfed/finished, regeneratively managed grazing, animal welfare considerations, biodiversity protection and involvement in soil testing and/or other regenerative “outcome” verifications, that 3rd party inspection and the required information provided by the producers can be used to access GRASS markets.