Area farmers can protect the environment and earn some extra cash at the same time by holding carbons in their soils.

In January, those carbons were trading at $1.92 a ton and now are up to $6.45 a ton. Companies can purchase carbons through the Chicago Climate Exchange to offset the carbon pollution produced by their manufacturing processes.

That means that a farmer with 100 acres enrolled in Kentucky’s Green River Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program can get an extra $6.45 an acre or $645 a year for up to five years, according to Ruth Steff-Pike, resource and conservation development coordinator for the Natural Resources and Conservation Service.

“That’s not an insignificant amount,” Steff-Pike said.

The funds could be used to offset ever-increasing costs farmers face for necessities like diesel fuel, fertilizer and seed, she said.

And in Warren County, 575 farmers in that program could sell the carbon that is being held or sequestered in the soil by the conservation practices used in the program, mostly planting native grasses and not farming the land which previously was used for row crops. In contrast, farmers that plow up fields year after year are releasing carbons from the soil into the atmosphere.

Even no-til farmland is eligible for the exchange that considers such soil in Kentucky sequesters .6 tons of carbon an acre.

“At today’s prices that would be $3.87 an acre,” Steff-Pike said.

There also is the expectation that later this year carbons sequestered by pastureland could be traded.

And already the carbons from managed hardwood timber forests of a certain age can be traded. They sequester between 3 tons and 7 tons an acre. So 100 acres of timber that sequesters 3 tons would mean $1,935 a year for 15 years and on the high side would be $4,515, at today’s prices.

Since a meeting with farmers across southern Kentucky in January, interest in selling carbons has picked up as the price of carbon has increased, Steff-Pike said.

In the first quarter of 2008, the Climate Exchange had record results with 196,831 contracts, compared to 70,334 for the same time in 2007, a 180 percent growth. Tons traded were 24.3 million for the time period, compared to a little more than 7 million in 2007.

Steff-Pike predicts that the price could reach $30 a ton if the United States approves environmental legislation under consideration.

Area farmers wanting to learn more about carbon exchange can attend a program at 7:30 p.m. June 3 at the Franklin-Simpson County Park agriculture building. Sponsored by the Simpson County Conservation District and the Mammoth Cave Resource and Conservation District, representatives of two aggregators, the companies that organize carbon exchange sales, will be at the meeting.

— For more information, go to www.chicago climateexchange.com.