Pivot Bio N-OVATOR™ Paying Off for Farmers

Cindy Zimmerman

Pivot Bio and its sustainability program N-OVATOR™ generated a lot of interest at the recent Commodity Classic in Houston since they have paid over $6 million to growers for implementing better nitrogen management practices since launching in 2022.

This year, downstream companies participating in N-OVATOR™’s insetting partnerships made payments to reward Pivot Bio growers for their practice change following the 2023 harvest. “All of these downstream customers have sustainability goals they are trying to hit,” said Jim Kelly, Sustainability Programs Director for Pivot Bio, during an interview at Classic. “So what we do is take that data from the farmer cutting 30-40 pounds of nitrogen and replacing it with our microbe, document what that environmental benefit is, and we pass that down to the customer…they in turn incentivize and pay that farmer for that practice change.”

Kelly says their largest transaction to date was the sale of 100,000 nitrogen credits to a global food and beverage company. The credits from this transaction represent 100,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent that was avoided by over 450 farmers across 300,000 acres within the company’s supply shed. In total, the growers in this insetting partnership replaced over 10 million pounds of synthetic fertilizer.

Learn more in this interview –
Classic24 Jim Kelly, Pivot Bio 4:37

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