Million Acre Challenge Cropping Plan, Cohort 1 2026 (Year 1)

An MMRV framework can help by translating the requirements of different standards, guidance, or protocols into a clear set of implementable steps that enable an environmental outcome to be evaluated and claimed

What is an MMRV framework?

Across ecosystem service markets and crediting initiatives, there is broad agreement on a core principle: environmental outcomes must be measured and verified in order to be credible. However, implementing an accurate, industry-accepted, and scalable measurement, monitoring, reporting, and verification (MMRV) process to evaluate an environmental outcome is no simple task.

An MMRV framework can help by translating the requirements of different standards, guidance, or protocols into a clear set of implementable steps that enable an environmental outcome to be evaluated and claimed. More specifically, frameworks provide clarity on the types of data or indicators, quantification methods, governance processes, and accounting procedures that are required to ensure outcomes are measured and verified with a high level of rigour.

Frameworks typically draw on established guidance to promote consistency, transparency, and build investor confidence. Some examples include:

What is the MMRV framework that CANZA is developing?

The goal of CANZA’s Marketplace is to connect farmers, companies, governments, and investors to advance climate-smart agriculture across Canada. It turns verified environmental outcomes into shared value—rewarding environmental stewardship, reducing risk, and accelerating investment in resilient, low-carbon food systems. CANZA is beginning this work through the Million Acre Challenge Program.

To ensure that multiple revenue generation pathways are available, CANZA will integrate several existing standards, guidance documents, and protocols into its MMRV framework. This will establish a rigorous process that aligns with a range of verification and buyer-side requirements.

Critically, this system is designed to be streamlined and farmer-friendly. Rather than requiring farmers to apply multiple times or manage multiple different data-collection processes for each outcome, CANZA and its service providers handle the alignment and translation of data behind the scenes. This allows farmers to participate once, while enabling outcomes to be verified and monetized across multiple pathways as market demand grows and evolves.

CANZA’s framework does not aim to replace any pre-existing standards, protocols, registries, or MMRV technologies. Rather, it pulls from and aligns the requirements of multiple systems to create a variety of participation pathways that reduce the barrier to entry for farmers and outcome buyers. We expect the framework will grow and evolve over time as it is iteratively tested and refined with each cohort of the Million Acre Challenge.

How will CANZA measure outcomes?

Measuring an environmental outcome can be done in a few different ways, and the specific process varies depending on the selected methodology - a document that outlines project design details, data sources, quantification approaches, and other associated requirements.

In most cases, environmental outcomes can be assessed through modelling tools that use farm-specific data to estimate change. Generally, participating farmers or their agronomists provide specific data about the farm and the new practices they have adopted, and then these data points are used as inputs to a methodology-aligned model to quantify the change in environmental outcomes.

For certain environmental outcomes, like soil carbon, changes must be directly measured on-farm by comparing a ‘before’ and an ‘after’ state. A single measurement, such as one soil carbon reading, only provides a snapshot of conditions at a specific moment, not evidence of an improvement over time.

To measure an environmental outcome generated by a change in farming practices, a baseline measurement (the “business as usual” state) is required, followed by remeasurement after the practice has been implemented and sufficient time has passed for change to occur. The difference between these measurements is what demonstrates that environmental outcomes have improved.

In most cases, remeasurement occurs three to five years after a practice change. This reflects the reality that environmental attributes, such as soil carbon or water quality, change gradually and must reach detectable levels before they can be credibly measured.