About

This program provides farmers with an estimate of the emissions reduction impact of conservation and agroforestry practices they are implementing. PRES then rewards participants with two kinds of payments, a participation payment and an ecosystem services performance payment based on the amount of emissions reduction impact of their practices. Using models such as COMET-planner, program staff will help applicants estimate the Carbon Dioxide Equivalents sequestered by the implementation of their proposed conservation practices. If applicants are selected for funding, baseline soil carbon measurements will be collected by program staff, and these measurements will be repeated after conservation practice implementation. These soil measurements are for verification and research purposes only at this time.  

PRES is not a carbon offset or carbon credit program. PRES rewards farmers for environmental stewardship and reports information about the total emissions mitigation impact of new practices back to each farm. PRES is trialing innovative approaches to how farmers are compensated for conservation. The program seeks to share information, learn, and evolve over time.

This program is administered by American Farmland Trust’s Western New England Regenerative Agriculture RCPP Project in partnership with the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) Regional Conservation Partnership Program (RCPP).

Five Important Things We Want You to Know About This Program

1. It’s a pilot program. We want to learn about your experience with this program and are eager for your ideas on how to improve it if it continues in future years.

2. The emissions estimates are based on a model. The model we are using this year is called COMET-Planner. It’s simple, easy to use, and available on a public website. It may not be perfectly accurate, but it is science-based and being improved all the time.

3. We want to measure changes in your soil carbon levels over time. This will not impact the payment you receive, but it will help us learn.

4. This is not a carbon market program. It is not associated with any kind of offset buying or trading. Our goal is to reward the contributions that farmers make towards emissions reductions – that’s it!

5. There are two types of payments. Everyone who enrolls gets a participation payment. We also calculate an ecosystem services performance payment based on the estimated emissions reduction impact your practices have. The larger your impact on emissions, the higher your ecosystem services performance payment will be

Timeline

Applications will be accepted from September 1 – September 26, 2025. 

After an application has been submitted, selected applicants will be contacted by AFT staff to create a COMET Planner report. 

Awardees will be notified about the status of their application by November 30th, 2025. Initial soil sampling by AFT will be planned for spring of 2025, prior to conservation practice implementation.

Eligibility

This program is currently open to livestock farmers. For this program, we define “farmer” as an individual, group, or organization who are intentionally raising livestock. A project may involve one or more of the following: an individual farmer, a farm family, a group of farmers with a cooperative business, or a non-profit entity. 

This program recognizes the following as “livestock”: beef or dairy cattle, bison, hogs, poultry, bees, goats, sheep, waterfowl. 

Eligible participants must be implementing practices for the first time on the land unit after their project has been selected for funding. 

The proposed project must take place in one or more of the following counties:

• Connecticut: Fairfield; Hartford; Litchfield; Middlesex; New Haven; New London; Windham; Tolland

• Massachusetts:Hampshire; Hampden; Berkshire; Franklin; Worcester

• New Hampshire: Coos; Grafton; Sullivan; Cheshire

• Vermont: Bennington; Caledonia; Essex; Orange; Windham; Windsor