Better numbers and better potatoes: Walther Farms
Walther Farms grows potatoes across the US, commercial and seed potatoes across more than 18,000 acres in multiple states. For years they've been adopting fertilizer practices that lower emissions.
A footprint that didn't reflect reality
Walther Farms came to Proba for a high-quality assessment of their upstream and in-field fertilizer-related emissions. They were already quantifying a lot of on-farm emission sources with Cool Farm Tool.
Fertilizer is the area where the quantification gets complicated. When we looked at their data, the inhibitors (nitrogen stabilizers) were recorded only as nitrification inhibitors in general. This is the level of fertilizer-specific detail that general farm-level accounting doesn't cover fully.
Filling the gap
We gave Walther Farms a data template covering the exact inputs we needed on the specific interventions they’ve adopted, and overlaid that onto their existing Cool Farm data. That combination produced a dataset detailed enough to support a fertilizer-specific assessment rather than generic estimates.
We use meta-analysis matched to Walther Farms' situation: their crop, their soils, their practices. The result stays comparable to standard emission factors, but it follows actual field conditions and picks up reductions a generic factor would miss.
Walther Farms had been farming better for years without full recognition for it. With a fertilizer-specific assessment, that practice becomes visible in numbers that can be reported and verified.