Continuum Ag's Mitchell Hora on New Scoring System for Biofuel Production
Mitchell Hora, a farmer and founder of Continuum Ag, has been hosting a weekly call-in show called CI Chit Chat to explain complex topics in Washington to farmers in the Corn Belt. In the latest episode, he discussed the new scoring system for biofuel production, which measures carbon intensity. The rule sets terms under which farmers' growing practices can be counted and paid for under a federal biofuel tax credit.
The 101-page rule was published by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) on June 29, 2026, after four years of waiting. Hora's company had built verification systems and software to measure soil health data, but the lack of rules held them back from getting paid for low-carbon corn.
Continuum Ag has been working with farmers to map their fields, gain insights, and evaluate new practices for economic resilience and sustainability. The company launched a challenge in November 2023 to score a billion bushels of corn in a single year and raise awareness about low-carbon farming.
The final rule establishes how the carbon intensity of biofuel feedstock crops gets quantified, reported, and verified. It covers field corn, soybeans, sorghum, and spring canola. While Hora had lobbied for a tracking system called book-and-claim, which would let farmers sell their grain to one buyer and the carbon data to another, the USDA kept mass balance.
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has issued proposed regulations for the credit, but has not yet finalized them. The credit expires at the end of 2029, so farmers need to capitalize on this opportunity quickly.