Al Gore's got to love North Dakota farmers like Mark Holkup, of Wilton.

Holkup is one of about 600 agrarians who pledged to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by the way they manage their land

Gore, former vice president and environmentalist, believes, as do many, that CO2 and several other gases are causing an atmospheric greenhouse that's heating up the Earth.

If Gore loves the farmers enrolled in the new carbon credit program run by the Farmers Union, he may not love so much the coal-fired power plants in North Dakota. The six coal-fired plants in Coal County, a seventh in Mandan and three sugar beet processors, make this state a sizeable CO2 contributor, though far from the largest in the country.

For comparison, Texas emits 684 million metric tons of carbon a year, says the Environmental Protection Agency. North Dakota emits 48 million - the majority from electric power.

Holkup may be like a lot of people.

He says he doesn't have enough scientific knowledge to know if the global warming theory is accurate or not.

He said if there's a reasonable chance that man's activities affect the temperature of Earth, then it only makes sense to get involved.

Holkup heard about the North Dakota Farmers Union carbon credit program at a meeting last fall.

It's really pretty simple.

Certain farm and ranch practices keep carbon in the soil in the form of organic plant matter. Others don't.

Now, a lot of North Dakota farmers have been doing that anyway in the form of no-till and minimum-till farming. That kind of farming opens the soil very narrowly to drop in seed. The crop plants are left to decompose naturally after harvest, rather than getting tilled into black exposed soil that erodes in the rain and blows in the wind.

Decomposing plants leave carbon in the soil, where it becomes food for the next plant cycle.

The constant tilling released all that carbon to hook up with oxygen and form CO2.

Holkup said he'd been farming the no-till, or very minimum-till style for 10 years anyway, because it conserves moisture and topsoil.

When the Farmers Union came along, willing to pay him per acre if he would keep on no-tilling for the duration of a five-year contract, there was every reason to say, "Heck, yes."

He'll get a check within the next several weeks, he hopes.

Holkup said he's a relatively small operator so his check won't be huge, maybe enough for a couple of airline tickets to some fun vacation destination, or to help pay the real estate taxes.

The Farmers Union enrolled 833,000 acres in North Dakota, or the equivalent of 320,000 tons of carbon.

There's soil science that estimates the fractional carbon tons in an acre of dirt.

The average farmer or rancher signed up around 1,300 acres.

The carbon credit is worth about $1.50 an acre for no-till and $2.50 an acre for grass acres planted after 1999. Forestry acres are worth $4 to $12 an acre, but for now, that means acres of newly planted trees and to a lesser extent, thinning practices that enhance tree growth. Native prairie acres also will be eligible.

Plants and trees require CO2 for life.

The carbon credit program works through a combination of encouraging CO2 consumption by trees and encouraging carbon to remain in the soil so it doesn't make even more.

Dale Enerson manages the carbon credit program for the Farmers Union.

He's on the road constantly with his laptop power point presentation, selling, retelling and explaining all across this state and several others, where the North Dakota Farmers Union has agreed to manage the carbon credit signups.

The Farmers Union takes the signups and then sells the carbon credits by the ton on the Chicago Climate Exchange. The exchange bills itself as the only carbon broker on the North American continent, in business since 2003.

Some 200 entities, including companies and cities, like Aspen, Colo., are listed as carbon buyers on the exchange.

Enerson said the exchange works like any other exchange. He posts carbon tons for sale every day and waits, fingers crossed, for someone to jump in and buy them. It's taking longer than he expected to sell the 650,000 carbon tons he's signed up for 2005 and 2006.

Companies buy them because they are socially and politically motivated. In some cases, stockholders like a stronger environmental position by the company, Enerson said.

In other parts of the world where countries have signed onto the Kyoto carbon dioxide-reduction treaty, the carbon exchange program is not voluntary. Carbon credits in the European Union sell for $20 a ton, far higher than on the Chicago Climate Exchange.

Enerson said he didn't expect it would take quite this long for the carbon credits he's signed up to sell on the exchange. He's got about three-fourths sold, one-fourth to go.

"I'm selling tons of air every day," he said. "Some nights I don't sleep, wondering 'Will this work?'"

Agrarians who enroll will get paid when all the tonnage is sold, minus commissions to the exchange and the Farmers Union.

For all the work involved, the Farmers Union carbon credit program will end up sequestering less than 1 percent of the 48 million metric tons of CO2 emitted in North Dakota every year.

It isn't much. Emerson admits the agricultural programs never will be anywhere close to the total solution.

On the other hand, some is better than none.

(Reach reporter Lauren Donovan at 888-303-5511 or lauren@;westriv.com.)