nurture.farm, a digital platform for sustainable agriculture, has become the first company to successfully generate and forward sell agricultural-related carbon credits in India
nurture.farm’s Alternate Wetting and Drying & Dry Seeded Rice (AWD-DSR) project covered 22,000 acres of rice paddy fields and involved over 2,500 smallholder farmers. This initiative forms a crucial part of nurture.farm’s mission to transition farmers to adopt sustainable agricultural practices, and reduce the environmental impact of rice cultivation.
Around 20,000 carbon credits were derived from this AWD-DSR project. Its benefits included 15% to 30% of water savings.
Another 120,000 credits are under process from the Crop Residue Management (CRM) programme. The CRM programme empowered over 25,000 farmers to prevent 420,000 acres of farmland being burnt, thereby preventing the generation of 2,135 tonnes of particulate matter, including PM 2.5 and PM 10.
During the last cropping season (Rabi), nurture.farm expanded the AWD-DSR programme across an additional 120,000 acres.
Dhruv Sawhney, business head and chief operating officer of nurture.farm, said, “India is well-placed to pioneer agriculture-related carbon credit trading. India is the world’s second-largest producer of key staples including rice, wheat, fruit and vegetables, and agriculture is the primary source of livelihood for over 50% of the population. And yet, India is also the world’s third largest emitter of greenhouse gases.
nurture.farm is currently developing protocols for verifying traceable carbon credits through its online platform and will use blockchain technology to trade credits on carbon markets.
During the course of 2022, nurture.farm will also establish a common carbon credits registry and trading platform, which utilises a standardised methodology to simplify traceability and make verification easier.
