SMARTFARM Highlights

On August 17, 2023, Yard Stick PBC announced $10.6 million raised in Series A funding for their low-cost, in situ soil carbon measurement technology in a round led by Toyota Ventures Climate Fund with participation from the Microsoft Climate Innovation Fund, The Nature Conservancy, Lowercarbon Capital, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Pillar VC, and others. Their Series A round brings Yard Stick’s total venture capital funding to over $16 million.

ARPA-E recently welcomed Dr. Nick Goeser as the federal Tech-to-Market (T2M) advisor for our agriculture technology portfolio. We sat down with Dr. Goeser ahead of ARPA-E’s upcoming carbon farming workshop to discuss his perspectives on the current state of domestic agriculture, and how ARPA-E can play a role in transforming the industry to better meet the needs of our society.

Every year on April 22, we celebrate Earth Day; promoting environmental enthusiasm and efforts to protect our planet’s precious natural resources. As part of ARPA-E’s authorizing authority that established the agency within the Department of Energy, we’re tasked to overcome long-term and high-risk technological barriers in the development of transformative science and technology solutions to address the energy and environmental missions of the Department. Because of this, our projects and programs focus on developing technologies that have the potential to radically improve U.S.

The Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy announced $16.5 million in funding for six projects as part of the Systems for Monitoring and Analytics for Renewable Transportation Fuels from Agricultural Resources and Management (SMARTFARM) program. These projects will develop technologies that bridge the data gap in the biofuel supply chain by quantifying feedstock-related GHG emissions and soil carbon dynamics at the field-level.

ARPA-E recently released a funding opportunity, Systems for Monitoring and Analytics for Renewable Transportation Fuels from Agricultural Resources and Management (SMARTFARM), to develop innovative new technologies for measuring emissions from agricultural feedstock production. We sat down with Dr. David Babson, SMARTFARM’s Program Director, to learn about his vision and the technologies of interest for Phase 2 of the program.

Today, the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) announced up to $20 million in funding to develop technologies to quantify feedstock-related emissions at the field level.