The Soil Center is a joint initiative between Royal Family Farming and CMI Orchards to build a world-class hub for soil health and regenerative innovation. The facility is designed to transform agricultural byproducts into powerful tools for rebuilding soil and supporting a healthier planet.

At The Soil Center, byproducts from CMI’s orchards and Royal Family Farming, such as orchard wood waste, fruit culls, and other organic waste, are upcycled into valuable soil amendments through 14 acres of worm farms, biochar reactors, and composting systems. These processes convert waste into nutrient-rich, carbon-storing soil ingredients that feed the land, strengthen orchard ecosystems, and promote healthier, more resilient trees.

By turning waste streams into soil solutions, The Soil Center plays a vital role in closing the loop in agriculture, advancing regenerative practices, and proving that healthy soil is the foundation of a healthy planet.

Worm farms use worms and microbes to naturally clean wastewater from farming operations. As wastewater passes through beds filled with wood chips and millions of worms, the worms process and break down organic waste, while the microbes living alongside them help filter and purify the water.

This process is useful in farming because it cleans wastewater, allowing us to reuse it for irrigation, reduces odors from manure while keeping it out of local waterways, produces worm castings—a nutrient-rich, organic fertilizer, and reduces methane emissions from manure management.

Biochar is a charcoal-like material made by heating plant waste, like wood chips, or orchard prunings, in a lowoxygen environment. Instead of rotting or burning and releasing stored carbon back into the air, the carbon in that plant matter gets locked into a stable and solid form.

When biochar is added to soil, it can stay there for hundreds to thousands of years, effectively trapping carbon in the ground. Biochar can improve soil health by enhancing water retention by absorbing water into its porous surface, holding it and making it available to plants when needed. It also enhances nutrient cycling, by absorbing and retaining essential nutrients such as nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium, then releasing these nutrients over time to sustain plant growth.

The Soil Center® generates biochar using three biochar reactors, which utilize orchard waste from CMI Orchards as feedstock. Biochar is used back in CMI's orchards to close the loop from waste to soil amendment.

Soil amendments are materials added to soil to improve its health and productivity. They can be natural (such as compost, manure, or biochar) or synthetic (such as chemical fertilizers and treatments), and they help with tasks like adding nutrients, improving soil structure, retaining more water, and supporting beneficial microbes. Why are they important? Healthy soil grows healthier crops, uses water and fertilizers more efficiently, and provides greater resilience to drought and pests. Why are carbon-rich soil amendments useful? Carbon-rich soil amendments are beneficial because they not only boost soil fertility but store carbon in the ground instead of letting it escape into the atmosphere. All soil amendments made at The Soil Center® are naturally derived, designed to be carbon-rich and highly nutritious, reducing the need to add synthetic products to the soil.

CO2e stands for carbon dioxide equivalent. It’s a way of adding up all the different greenhouse gases, such as methane and nitrous oxide, into a single number so they can be compared on the same scale. For example, methane (CH4) traps about 28 times more heat than CO2 , and nitrous oxide (N2O) traps about 265 times more heat! Instead of tracking each gas separately, we convert them into the amount of CO2 that would have the same warming effect—and use the term CO2e.

Most of our tree fruit can be labeled “carbon-negative” when the processes to grow them actually removes more greenhouse gases from the atmosphere than the process creates.

At CMI, this is made possible by work at The Soil Center® and trees in our orchards that naturally pull carbon dioxide out of the air as they grow, storing it in their wood and soil. Because CMI has committed to no longer burning removed orchard wood, instead upcycling it into soil products, that carbon is banked in the soil even when trees are removed.

Regenerative practices like cover cropping, compost, and applying biochar add even more carbon to the soil. At the same time, we reduce emissions from fertilizers, energy use, and waste.

When the amount of carbon absorbed and stored by the orchard is greater than the emissions produced along the way, the result is carbon-negative fruit that helps clean the air as it grows.

A carbon credit is a certificate that represents one ton of greenhouse gases reduced or removed from the atmosphere. They’re generated when a project proves it has cut emissions or pulled carbon out of the air, for example, through the use of renewable energy, forest restoration, or better farming practices.

The Soil Center® generates carbon credits by improving how we grow and manage our land: planting cover crops, building healthier soils that naturally store more carbon by using carbon-rich soil amendments, such as worm castings, biochar, and compost, in our growing processes, and reducing fertilizer use. These practices lock carbon into the soil, rather than allowing it to escape into the atmosphere, and each measurable ton of carbon stored in this way can be converted into a carbon credit.

At The Soil Center®, all our carbon credits will be verified by Verra’s Verified Carbon Standard, the world's most widely used greenhouse gas crediting program

At The Soil Center®, the carbon credits generated will be verified under the Verra Verified Carbon Standard (VCS), one of the world’s most widely recognized programs for ensuring that carbon reductions are real and reliable.

Here’s how it works:

1. Document soil carbon practices and take samples.

2. Send soil samples to an independent third-party verifier, approved by Verra, to confirm carbon sequestration.

3. Verra issues carbon credits, which can then be used or sold as offsets (outside the supply chain) or insets (inside the supply chain).

A credit represents one ton of carbon dioxide, or another greenhouse gas, removed or reduced from the environment and can be bought or sold on the carbon market.

An offset happens outside of a company’s direct operations. An inset happens inside a company's own supply chain.

At CMI Orchards, we hope to sell a portion of the carbon credits generated by The Soil Center® project as insets to help our supply chain partners reach their climate goals and keep the positive impact within the food industry.

Selling carbon credits to supply chain partners helps the environment by creating a financial reward for practices that reduce greenhouse gases. When partners buy credits from us, they are supporting regenerative farming that stores more carbon in the soil and reduces emissions, encouraging more sustainable practices across the supply chain and shifting money into climate solutions.

In short, when supply chain partners purchase carbon credits, they’re not just balancing their own emissions, they’re funding environmental improvements on farms that keep carbon in the ground, improves soil health, and makes agriculture more sustainable long-term. 

Keeping carbon credits within the supply chain (as insets) means the climate benefits stay directly connected to the products we grow and sell. By partnering with our own buyers and suppliers—rather than selling credits on the open market—the value stays within the supply chain. This approach helps all partners reduce their carbon footprint, demonstrate progress toward climate commitments, understand where the credits come from and how carbon is stored. This approach creates a win-win relationship where environmental improvements strengthen business ties.

Selling carbon credits to supply chain partners helps the environment by creating a financial incentive for practices that reduce greenhouse gas emissions. When partners purchase carbon insets from The Soil Center®, they support regenerative farming that stores more carbon in the soil, reduces emissions, encourages more sustainable practices across the supply chain, and directs funding toward climate solutions.

In short, when supply chain partners purchase carbon insets, they’re not just balancing their own emissions; they’re funding real environmental improvements on farms that keep carbon in the ground, improve soil health, and make agriculture more sustainable in the long term.