POET to adopt FBN digital grain sustainability technology

POET, the world’s largest biofuel producer, and Farmers Business Network (FBN), a global Ag Tech company and farmer-to-farmer network, today announced that FBN’s grain origination and carbon-scoring sustainability tech platform, Gradable, will be adopted at all 33 of POET’s ethanol bioprocessing facilities, creating the world’s largest integrated infrastructure to source and sell low-carbon grain for the biofuels supply chain.

Gradable will enable POET to track attributes of individual bushels of grain—including carbon intensity—to supply low-carbon fuel markets while providing farmers who grow low carbon crops access to potential new revenue streams. POET, the world leader in ethanol production, sources more than 930 million bushels of grain annually from across the Midwest region. According to a recent study, today’s bioethanol reduces carbon emissions by 46 percent compared to gasoline.

“At POET, we have always believed that farmers are the original innovators and stewards of the land,” said Bob Whiteman, chief financial officer of POET Biofuels. “Today, they want to be part of the climate solution, and we want to partner with farmers who share our vision to create a more sustainable world. Gradable is a significant step in combining agriculture, environmental sustainability, and technology to ultimately create even greener bioproducts that will drive a low-carbon future.”

“Gradable is the technology platform that can pave the way for low-carbon food and fuel supply chains because global markets have been waiting for a carbon accounting system that can cost effectively collect, verify, score and track farm level carbon data,” said Amol Deshpande, CEO and co-founder of Farmers Business Network. “The Gradable technology makes it possible to create premium markets for verifiably low carbon grain while ensuring that the farmers who grow low carbon crops are rewarded for their sustainable practices.”

FBN’s Gradable technology platform provides a modern digital infrastructure for efficient, transparent, and secure grain transactions for both farmers and grain buyers. It allows farmers to easily collect and securely submit verifiable production data, including Nitrogen fertilizer use data, which accounts for the largest share of emissions associated with grain production globally. Gradable automatically calculates individual environmental scores and supplies the environmental scores securely to premium buyers. Grain buyers only receive the environmental score associated with a farmer’s delivered grain. Individual farm data is kept private and not shared with grain buyers.

POET customers who are not already using FBN now benefit from the full FBN suite of tools and services, including crop input price transparency, agronomic analytics, and on-farm R&D.

“From day one at FBN our first priority has been the profit potential of the family farm,” said Devin Lammers, President of FBN Financial and Gradable. “Gradable is another step toward providing farmers with better market visibility, access and convenience. POET is one of the largest corn buyers in the world and farms will continue to benefit from their innovation and premiums for sustainably grown grain.”