Nature's solution for
net-negative agriculture
Greenlandic Rock Flour (GRF) is a natural, non-toxic plant nutrient solution for climate friendly crop agriculture backed by decades of research - and it’s ready for global scale.
What is Greenlandic Rock Flour?
GRF is 100% natural, non-toxic, ultra-fine rock powder, packed full of essential minerals and nutrients to support healthy soils and plant growth. In fact, it’s the same natural starting material behind the world’s most fertile agricultural soils in existence today.
Beyond acting as a source of Potassium (K), Phosphorus (P) and other key micronutrients, GRF also rapidly captures up to 25% of its weight in CO2, making it deeply carbon-negative. Other co-benefits include soil pH regulation and improved soil structure.
Early trials have demonstrated yield uplifts of up to 30%
Trials in Ghana and Denmark funded by the Novo Nordisk Foundation have proven increases in crop yields over multiple growing seasons on cropland amended with GRF.
We are looking for partners to join our mission towards net‑zero agriculture.
We want to partner with a range of actors to further demonstrate how we integrate within current and emerging farming practices:
- Individual farmers focused on regenerative practices
- Consortiums of farmers / cooperatives
- Organic fertilizer suppliers
- Other novel soil health solutions that could work alongside GRF
How is it made?
GRF is formed by the motion of the vast Greenland ice sheet, grinding down bedrock under the pressure from 3km of ice into micron-sized particles. Summer meltwater flushes GRF out of the glacial system, and into accessible shoreline deposits.
Over a billion tons is deposited across Greenland, every year. When taken to soils in warmer climates, the GRF rapidly weathers - a process that releases the nutrients and enables the carbon capture.
Enhanced weathering 101
The long carbon cycle
For eons, CO₂ has dissolved in rainwater forming carbonic acid. The rainwater falls on rocks that slowly break down, turning the dissolved CO₂ into stable bicarbonates that eventually end up as carbonate in Earth’s crust. However, this process takes a long time.
Applied for speed
By spreading ultra-fine rock flour on croplands in warmer climates, we drastically speed up this natural process by giving the dissolved CO₂ immediate contact with the rock particles. This reduces the timescale from millions of years to no more than decades.
Nature’s carbon lock
What makes this even more thrilling is that once the reaction has taken place, it is practically irreversible. The CO₂ is locked away for hundreds of thousands of years. Put differently, permanently - all without competing for land or green energy.
Small particles are key to faster weathering
There are four key factors required for efficient weathering:
Carbon capture and nutrient release is optimised in warm, wet climates with slightly acidic soils. The smaller the rock particle size, the faster the weathering as small particles provide a large surface area.
Theoretically, any silicate rock can be used to capture carbon on croplands. Basalt is a commonly used rock for this purpose, and can be found in many places around the world. However, GRF is the only silicate rock that is naturally pre-ground to an average grain size of 3/1000 millimeters.
Reaching a grain size as small as GRF with other sources of silicate rocks requires heavy mechanical crushing which is highly energy intensive. For example, crushing rock to three microns would require ~300 kWh, emitting 89 kg CO2 and costs €75 per ton crushed - increasing exponentially.
There’s a clear need
for scalable solutions
For the world to hit net-zero, carbon dioxide removal solutions are essential. Especially to offset emissions from hard-to-decarbonize sectors, like agriculture.
Other nature-based methods, e.g. reforestation, have less permanent impact. Planting trees is great for biodiversity, but only captures and stores carbon temporarily. It also competes for land that could otherwise be used for food production. Enhanced weathering, however, securely locks away carbon for over 100,000 years and, depending on rock, fertilizes the soil in which the process occurs.
Engineered solutions such as direct air capture (DAC) offers high and credible permanence, but is extremely energy intensive and competes for green electrons. Our approach blends nature and technology, offering permanent and truly scalable results within an acceptable time frame by simply accelerating a naturally occurring process. The resulting bioavailable nutrients also allow farmers to switch out synthetic fertilizers and reduce liming.
All solutions are different, but equally important and needed at scale today - reforestation and afforestation, DAC, BECCS, biochar, ocean concepts, and enhanced weathering must all be deployed massively, and there’s no time to wait.
A small team with a big vision
FAQ
If this is such a good idea, why hasn't it been done before?
Rock dust from a variety of sources has been used as a natural slow-release fertilizer fordecades. Only recently has GRF been investigated by Prof. Rosing as a fertilizer on soils outside of Greenland. It was always assumed that it would be too expensive to export, but the material’s dual benefit as an organic fertilizer and a carbon sink indicates profitable unit economics.
Doesn’t the flour already capture CO2 where it is, in Greenland?
Technically yes, but only extremely slowly. This is because the rock flour weathers very slowly in the cold arctic climate and sits in compacted deposits with little direct exposure to CO2. It is like keeping it in the world’s largest freezer. Moving the material towards the tropics and spreading it out on soils radically accelerates weathering and hence creates carbon “additionality”.
I’ve heard about enhanced rock weathering using other types of rock (e.g., basalt, olivine). How is Greenlandic GRF different?
Most silicates (GRF, basalts, olivine) are capable of binding CO2 via enhanced rock weathering by the same mechanism of bicarbonate formation. Different rock chemistries mean that certain types have higher CO2 removal potentials that others. The three main benefits of GRF vs other sources of silicates are that it’s already crushed to <10 microns by nature (this is a huge energy saving), it contains no toxic trace elements (this is particularly a challenge for olivine), and it’s available in gigaton quantities that can be easily shipped around the world.
What are the environmental effects of removing this material at scale from Greenland?
Any process that harvests material will disturb its local environment to some degree.Helpfully, the deposits of GRF in Greenland are situated at the deltas of glacial rivers which are naturally areas of turbulence and material transport due to glacial activity. This means dredging or harvesting rock flour from coastlines will likely not significantly disrupt the environment. At Rock Flour Company we are continuously working with Greenlandic and Danish authorities as well as local communities to ensure a legal, environmental and social acceptance of the harvesting process.
Do you have any questions?
Get in touch and we will respond to you shortly.
