31/10/2020 - Agriculture

KEY POINTS

·        Bayer, a company specialising in seeds and crop protection products, says it is rewarding about 1,200 farmers in Brazil and the United States with half a million acres between them for climate-smart practices like no-tillage farming, precision nitrogen use.

·       The market for agricultural carbon credit is in its infancy. The current carbon trading system is for reduction of GHGs produced by industry and the transport sector. Regulations have not caught up for mitigating agricultural carbon emissions.

·       In India, Grow Indigo, a joint venture formed in 2017 between a subsidiary of Mahyco, a Maharashtra-based pioneer in the seeds business, and Indigo Ag is taking a shot at impounding carbon in soil. It is testing its concept in about 1,000 acres in Punjab, Haryana and parts of Maharashtra.

·       These farms are geo-tagged. They will be monitored using remote sensing for regenerative farming practices like not burning paddy straw and stubble, adopting no- or low- tillage practices, rotating the crops and conserving water. The soil’s carbon content will be measured at the beginning and end of the crop cycle.

·       Farms that produce rice and wheat with a lower carbon footprint will be geo-tagged, so that their produce gets purchase and price preferences from those who want to promote lower carbon agriculture.

·       To measure carbon sequestered or abated, benchmarks have to be established based on CO2 equivalents generated through conventional agricultural practices.

·       These will vary as per soil type, crops cultivated, irrigation and other practices. Any reduction in emissions though improved farming practices will count as credits.

·       Life cycle analysis using mitigation optimisation tools will have to be done not only to measure direct emissions, but also those produced during the production, transportation and application of inputs like fertilisers, pesticides and irrigation.

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