Before she became a part of URVARA, a regenerative farming project under Boomitra, Sunanda K Mallikarjuna, 59, from Shimoga, Karnataka cultivated only rice on her 1.25 acres farmland using chemical fertilizers and crop-enhancers to boost her yield. She longed to follow regenerative practices to promote better soil health and better yields, but Sunanda neither had the financial strength nor the wherewithal to do it on her own. Her income supported her family including her husband, two daughters and a son. But, after she became a part of URVARA, Sunanda has had the opportunity to combine her farming wisdom with technology to do what was right. Slowly as she switched to sustainable farming, she grew pulses along with rice in rotational cultivation. From being dry and hard, the soil started to become fluffy with a remarkable uptick in earthworm activity.
“The process took time but I am glad I made the switch. I am still learning to sue the app, and the tech tools but I am so glad to be able to do farming this way and to see the yield multiply with a drastic reduction in the cost of cultivation,” Sunanda tells us.
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The verified soil carbon credits earned this farmer a good increase in remuneration. So much so that, “I want my children to leave their jobs and take up farming, full-time,” says Sunanda.
The voluntary carbon market in India is a nascent market driven by a diverse variety of sustainable pathways ranging from regenerative agriculture practices (Regen Ag), preparation and application of Biochar, enhanced rock weathering to condition the soil and agroforestry efforts that hold maximum potential to sequester soil carbon and reduce green-house gas emissions. This effort earns farmers credits that they can sell to individuals or organizations and earn revenue.
“If stewarded properly, agricultural soils could sequester an additional 2 to 5 gigatons of carbon annually. With the average Indian agricultural household earning just ₹10,218 ($122 USD) per month, verified payments from international carbon markets provide a meaningful and sustainable new income stream, specially for smallholder cultivators across the Global South,” says Aadith Moorthy, Founder and CEO, Boomitra, an international soil carbon marketplace that works with 43,000 smallholder farmers in India across more than 80,000 acres.
To harness maximum benefit, “Use of contextually relevant carbon interventions are necessary rather than pushing one set on all farmers across all regions,” says Madhur Jain, Co-Founder and CEO, Varaha, a climate-tech startup based in Gurgaon.
An IPCC report on climate change and land states that soil degradation is occurring over a quarter of the Earth’s ice-free land area and has an estimated cost of $6.3–10.6 trillion per year (or 10–17 percent of global GDP) due to loss of productivity. Around the world 35% of soil is already degraded that is resulting in increased emission of greenhouse gases and poor soil carbon sequestration. But with the support of government initiatives such as National Mission on Natural Farming (NMNF) that promotes chemical-free farming, Bhartiya Prakritik Krishi Paddati (BPKP) that promotes sustainable practises, and with private sector involvement such as Bayer with Bayer’s Forward Farming, that is promoting sustainable farming practises to rice farmers in India, The Alliance of Cotton and Textile Stakeholders’ (ACRE) regenerative practises for cotton cultivators and EID Parry’s initiative to take it to sugarcane growers, the change is taking root in India. As per VERRA, the certification authority’s 2024 report, more than 50 agricultural carbon credit projects targeting 16.5 million hectares are happening in India.
Pathways for carbon sequestration
Regenerative agriculture is a combination of age-old practises involves working with nature, using natural resources with minimum soil disturbance, integration of livestock along with efforts to build soil biodiversity. A regenerative agricultural system can sequester a more than 37.5 Gt of carbon per annum that is more than the current level of global emissions.
Biochar is a compound that locks carbon for more than 1000 years and is produced through pyrolysis, a process that heats the agri waste or wood at high temperature without oxygen. Either biomass is collected from farmers returned as biochar for free of cost. Or farmers are trained in producing biochar and using it on their farming land that helps increase crop yield, and reduce use of nitrous fertilizers. This removal of carbon is quantified and converted to carbon credits.
Enhanced rock weathering involves spreading finely ground silicate rocks (like basalt or olivine) over acidic agricultural soils. These rocks react with CO₂ dissolved in rainwater, forming stable bicarbonates that are eventually washed into oceans, where they can store carbon for thousands to millions of years. This process is verified for carbon credits.
It involves planting fruiting or pollinating trees on farmland and integrating them with livestock, promoting carbon sequestration. Trees absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as they grow, and the trees’ biomass, as well as the soil beneath the trees, store carbon. Credits are issued for carbon thus sequestered.
How voluntary carbon interventions work
Agri/climate-tech outfits work in partnership with local community organisations, with their own staff on the ground to orient and engage the farmers and bring their farmlands under a long contract. Tasks involve counselling, training, demonstration of practices, providing sustainable inputs, and necessary machinery. Before onboarding, the farmers are given a thorough debriefing including the work and the volume of economic incentives they would receive. These organisations enable farmers access to the carbon market and to facilitate sale of credits.
Once a farming plot is onboarded, a soil sample is taken and analysed in the lab for organic matter, nutrient availability, chemical composition, and biodiversity. In addition, farmers also do manual tests to check general soil health, porosity, water infiltration, etc. Then, through IoT devices or a dedicated app and AI-powered remote sensing, the soil organic carbon, or tree-biomass is monitored. The data, thus derived from soil-testing and monitoring systems are used to arrive at solutions for soil health enhancement, facilitating a beneficial relationship between the plants and the microbial ecosystem in the soil.
“Often carbon offsets are confused with carbon credits. Agri projects are more applicable to carbon offsets—that is, offsetting CO2 equivalent from the atmosphere. These are done as part of CSR activity and are not monitored and are issued Tradeable Certificates that can be sold to individuals or companies that are looking to offset their footprint. The credits are issued based on substantial proof for what was done before vis-à-vis what is done to make it not carbon-intensive. Depending on the quality of practises, the remuneration can range from upwards of $25,” says Sabareesh Suresh.
Voluntary carbon interventions have started transforming farmer livelihoods already, says Jain, drawing from Varaha’s work with 140,000 farmers in India, which reaches more than 1 million acres of land in total, “For those doing Regen Ag, there is a net increase in P&L of upto 16% for farmers who have been at it for 3 years. In case of biochar, he notes, we have made payments worth more than 20 crores INR to the community.”
Carbon intervention programs work long-term, binding farmer plots for duration ranging from one agricultural season to at least four decades.
Still, the programs are appealing because we are always in touch with out land, especially in the present time where there is a lot of climate-change that is impacting farming, says 34-year-old sugarcane farmer Harish Gowda Patil from Bagalkot, Karnataka. “We get free farm insights-the Nitrogen, Potassium and Phosphorous content in the soil four to five times in a month and we interact regularly with Mitra, the AI agronomist in our local language for updates.”
For the program that spans vast, diverse landscapes that are prone to local disasters, to be consistent and sustainable, calamity risk-proofs are essential. The non-permanence risk score, in significant double digits for countries like India is usually set as a buffer against credits.
“Typically, 20% of credits, in line with standard protocols act as a buffer to cover any potential reversals. Through agreements with local partners, we quickly replace any farmers who exit to ensure continuity,” says Moorthy.
For all the collective efforts, the real-time environmental impact, in voluntary carbon market comes down to robustness of data and transparency. The process verification is done by leading standards, including Verra, the non-profit that operates the global standard and the Gold Standard, which require extensive third-party audits and data verification. But adding more scientific rigour and clear regulations could only keep the industry going and make the impact measurable. “Carbon credits work on the concept of additionality: Against the original baseline practice, what’s the net removal or reduction that has taken place because of change in practices by the farmers. Largely, in our experience so far, the emission per farmer in a certain district, for a given cropping system largely are the same, which means outliers in the baseline are few, but they do exist, given the sheer number of farmers that we have in India,” says Jain.
“It takes at least a year of consistent efforts and reporting to be able to generate sufficient data. Once the Bureau of Energy Efficiency brings in agriculture also as a priority contributor and India builds its own carbon market, both the reach and impact will be more and measurable,” concludes Suresh.
