Soon Farmers Can Sell Carbon Credits, to Industries, Earned from Adopting Sustainable Agricultural Practices

The initiative to provide carbon credits to farmers in eight states is a groundbreaking effort to promote sustainable agriculture

Soon, Farmers in eight states will be financially rewarded for adopting sustainable agricultural practices, such as low tillage, direct-seeded rice (DSR), nitrogen management, and crop residue management.

The initiative to provide carbon credits to farmers is actually limited to eight specific states in India: Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Haryana, Punjab, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, and Telangana.

This program aims to incentivize environmentally friendly farming and help farmers earn additional income through carbon credits.

The private company involved in this particular carbon credit program for farmers is Grow Indigo. It's a joint venture between Mahyco, an Indian seed company, and Indigo Ag, a US-based agriculture technology company. Grow Indigo is responsible for enrolling farmers, managing carbon credit projects, and ensuring that the credits are generated and sold according to the Verra certification standards.

How It Works

Farmers will be rewarded for adopting sustainable practices such as low tillage, direct-seeded rice (DSR), nitrogen management, and crop residue management. These practices help reduce greenhouse gas emissions and improve soil health.

Financial Rewards: The carbon credits earned by farmers can be sold to industries, such as aviation, mining, and fertilizer manufacturing, which need to offset their carbon footprints. Approximately 75% of the revenue from the sale of carbon credits will flow back to the farmers.

Third-Party Audit: The carbon credits are certified by Verra, a global voluntary greenhouse gas reduction program, ensuring that the credits are legitimate and verifiable.

Based on the certification by Verra, the carbon credits will be awarded to farmers in the next couple of months. This certification ensures that the carbon credits are legitimate and verifiable, providing farmers with a reliable way to earn additional income through sustainable agricultural practices

Impact: The program aims to benefit small and marginal farmers by providing them with an additional source of income while promoting environmentally friendly farming practices.

Grow Indigo has enrolled 80,000 farmers in Haryana, Punjab, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana covering diverse crops in over 40,000 hectare in various carbon programme.

This initiative is a significant step towards making agriculture more sustainable and helping farmers earn extra income through carbon credits.

To recall, earlier this month IndianWeb2 reported that India is gearing up for its first carbon credit sale, with the Food Corporation of India (FCI) playing a crucial role.

In July this year, the Agriculture Ministry has developed the framework for promoting the Voluntary Carbon Market (VCM) in the agricultural sector to encourage small and marginal farmers to get carbon credit benefits.Introducing carbon markets to farmers can accelerate the acceptance of eco-friendly agriculture practices while enhancing their income.

Bureau of Energy Efficiency (under the Ministry of Power) is also involved in developing the Carbon Credit Trading Scheme.

Arya.ag Launches Agri Loans on Blockchain

Revolutionary Initiative Ensures Accuracy, Trust, and Rapid Loan Disbursement in the Agri-Value Chain.

Arya.ag, India’s largest and only profitable grain commerce platform, has launched agri loans on the blockchain. Warehouse receipt loans disbursed on its fintech arm and NBFC, Aryadhan, shall be processed on its blockchain to offer users absolute trust and transparency.

Arya.ag has tokenised commodities stored in its warehouses, and this development now enables it to board its disbursements on the blockchain.

“Trust and transparency are key values for us at Arya.ag. Porting all disbursements on the blockchain while making payments in under five minutes will mark a significant leap in the efficiency of agri-lending services. The blockchain will ensure unprecedented visibility and assurance to control all physical risks in commodity storage and finance,” said Prasanna Rao, CEO of Arya.ag.

Partnering with 35 financial institutions, including banks and NBFCs, Arya.ag has emerged as a key player, managing 7.6 million tonnes of commodities with an AUM of 3 billion USD in the last financial year. “We look at collaborating with other lenders to move commodity-based warehouse-receipt financing onto the blockchain and improve the overall transparency, speed, and reliability of these transactions," said Rao.

Navigating the agricultural lending landscape presents a fundamental challenge of establishing trust between the lender and borrower. Arya.ag solves for this through its blockchain. Arya.ag stands as the trusted custodian for every token generated, safeguarding against duplicate pledges and ownership conflicts. Upon a pledge, a smart contract initiates, allowing banks to assign a distinct identifier for the token lien. This procedure guarantees the exclusivity of each pledge while offering banks a consolidated view on all pledged commodities.

Moving the lending process to a blockchain would not only expedite transactions but also significantly enhance security and trust among participants. The decentralised nature of blockchain ensures immutable record-keeping, making the data transparent yet secure and virtually tamper-proof, thereby reducing fraud and errors. Additionally, such a move would standardise procedures and documentation, facilitating smoother interactions among various stakeholders in the commodity trading and financing sectors.

Arya.ag collaborated with Newrl, a decentralised trust network blockchain to develop this infrastructure. For now, Arya.ag’s ledger has 3.2 million metric tons of commodities stored across 894 warehouses on the blockchain network. Through this initiative, Arya.ag is creating a world of faster, safer transactions not just for big business but, importantly, for smallholder farmers, too. This technology levels the playing field, giving them quicker, more secure access to the funds they need to thrive.

ABOUT ARYA.AG

Arya.ag, India's largest and fastest-growing integrated grain commerce platform, eliminates the trust deficit in the grain commerce value chain. Its disruptive integrated PAN India platform delivers value to all stakeholders by enabling access to high-quality produce, products, and services. Powered by an exponentially growing layer of visibility and control currently stretching across 425 districts in 21 states, 11000 warehouses, and USD 3 billion of grain, Arya.ag offers the assurance of quality supply to buyers and on-time fair payment for their produce and allied services to sellers. It seamlessly embeds finance to maximise value for both sellers and buyers, and the platform facilitates over USD 1.3 Bn of finance annually. More at www.arya.ag

Agri Fintech KiVi Closes Seed Round, Positions To Serve The Farmgate Ecosystem With Credit, Commerce And Distribution

KiVi Founding Team

• Addresses the key supply side gap for priority sector lenders (PSLs) by providing technology & last mile transaction capability
• Enables purpose-built, timely and affordable solutions to farmer households and agri-entrepreneurs

Agri-fintech startup KiVi, operated by Agrosperity Tech Solutions Private Limited, announces the conclusion of its seed round of Rs 15 crore led by Caspian Leap for Agriculture Fund, Piper Serica Angel Fund, YAN Angel Fund, Impact Innovators and Entrepreneurs Foundation, among others. KiVi is incubated at IIT Madras Research Park and stands for kisan vikas - farmer development.

Sharing details about the seed round and the way forward, Mr. Joby C O, Founder & CEO said, “We are excited to welcome our first institutional investors who share KiVi’s vision to make agriculture a livelihood of choice by enabling credit, commerce and distribution to the farmgate ecosystem.”

Apart from Mr. Joby, who is a veteran in rural leading, KiVi’s founding team includes Padmakumar K, Rajendra Kumar, Salil Nair and Manoj Ramaswamy who bring rich execution experience in rural lending, agri commerce, rural technologies and fund raise.

The farmgate ecosystem comprises farmer households and agri entrepreneurs such as input retailers, output aggregators, farmer producer organizations and equipment renters. While the farmgate ecosystem presents a large market opportunity for credit and commerce, it has been under-served by the formal markets due to lack of solutions that address the unique characteristics of the stakeholders. Seasonal cash flows, absence of formal income proof and land ownership proof, fragmented landholding, inability of traditional lenders to build a cost-effective delivery model and participate in the adjacent commerce opportunities and are the key gaps that KiVi is addressing.

Joby further added, “KiVi enables timely, affordable and scale-based credit as well as commerce from the farmgate to the processor. We accomplish this by leveraging our technology and last mile transaction capability. Our technology platform assembles and integrates the latest technologies in identification, validation, consent, evaluation and monitoring to provide a seamless experience to all stakeholders. Our last mile capability provides the customer relationship interface that is critical to serve the agri and rural customer base.”

KiVi has seen early validation of its offerings with 80% of customers enjoying agri-specific loan for the first time, 60% experiencing an increase in their income and a net promoter score of 77. Further, KiVi has partnered with leading lending institutions.

KiVi is operational in Tamil Nadu and Bihar and has till date enabled 1,500+ farmers to access credit, launched MSME loan offerings to agri entrepreneurs and enabled commerce and trade finance in commodities including wheat, paddy & maize.

“We are excited about our investment in KiVi. The agri fintech space is ripe for innovation and disruption, though having many challenges, including the perceived risk with agri credit. We believe that KiVi, led by Joby, has the right blend of people with rich experience of rural financial services and agriculture to make this happen,” said Emmanuel Murray, Investment Director at Caspian Leap for Agriculture Fund.

“KiVi is cultivating a vital solution for the farmgate ecosystem bridging the gap between borrowers and lenders. We are excited to support a company with a visionary management team and their commitment to addressing one of the most critical challenges for the future of agriculture and rural economies,” said Abhay Agarwal, Principal at Piper Serica Angel Fund.

“The investment will help KiVi to build a robust technology platform for scale-up, increase the last-mile presence across many districts, strengthen the product and risk capabilities and obtain an NBFC license.” Joby concluded.

About Agrosperity and KiVi –

KiVi (operated by Agrosperity Tech Solutions Private Limited) is an agri fintech that aims to make farming a livelihood of choice by enabling credit, commerce and distribution to the farmgate ecosystem. The farmgate ecosystem comprises the farmer, input retailer, output aggregator and equipment renter. KiVi employs a unique phygital model that combines the power of technology with last mile transaction capability to deliver a seamless experience to customers, lending partners and corporate buyers. KiVi is incubated at IIT Madras Research Park. KiVi currently operates in 4 districts in 2 states – Tamil Nadu and Bihar and has onboarded 5 lending partners and 15+ corporate commodity buyers. For more information, visit www.agrosperity.com