San Francisco, CA | anthony@zerofoodprint.org

Anthony Myint is an award winning Chef/Restaurateur whose nonprofit, Zero Foodprint, leads collaborations with CA Dept of Food and Ag, CO Dept of Ag and regional governments like Boulder, CO, San Francisco, CA and more, to scale Agricultural Climate Solutions. Since 2020 ZFP has generated funds for and coordinated 53 regenerative agricultura projects with local technical assistance providers like the CA RCDs, Mad Agriculture, Point Blue Conservation Science and more. This includes the purchase and application of over 10,000 tons of compost on over 2000 acres (I need to confirm these numbers).

Session Code: B3

Track: Policy

Session Name: Compost in Agriculture: Addressing Climate Change, Carbon Cycling, and So Much More

Session Time: Wednesday, Jan 25, 4:15 to 5:45 PM

Presentation Title: Table to Farm: A Regenerative Economy to Build Healthy Soil

Presentation Description: Leading businesses in CA and CO are teaming up with farms and ranches through as part of a regenerative economy to sequester carbon alongside state agencies, regional governments and local conservation experts. This Table to Farm movement utilizes a collective action–just a few cents from purchases, to directly finance projects like compost application and other healthy soil practices.

Zero Foodprint is leading a successful regenerative economy program in CA and CO. Since 2020 the program has generated and awarded over $900k to 53 farm projects including over $600k for compost application projects. The cumulative GHG benefit is equivalent to not burning over 3 million gallons of gas.

Regenerative economy programs can be robust compost purchasers, serving as market development to accelerate the scaling of local compost efforts. Zero Foodprint and others are serving as an intermediary between governments, businesses, technical assistance and land stewards identifying and aligning the cost-sharing opportunities across all sectors to optimize climate benefit and agriculturally suitable compost markets.

This burgeoning regenerative economy movement circumvents the challenges of carbon markets by generating collective funding for compost application projects. In some respects, these projects play the role of carbon market project developer by creating up front funding for compost purchasing and without attrition from costly verification, registry and administration.