heyOn a rainy August morning, Sachin Hichami walked into the sub-divisional magistrate’s office at Etapalli. The bright, 20-year-old farmer from Krishnar village was troubled. His rice crop was getting damaged due to unseasonal rains and he did not know what to do. Over the years, erratic rainfall and extreme weather events have made agriculture unviable for many families in his village and Sachin was looking for alternative livelihood options.
Etapalli, a predominantly tribal block in Gadchiroli, Maharashtra’s easternmost district, is plagued by multiple problems: left-wing extremism, poor infrastructure, malnutrition and now failed agricultural crops. Since these problems are prevalent across the district, Gadchiroli has been classified as an aspirational district by the NITI Aayog.
In Etapalli, the average landholding per household is about three acres with one crop of paddy harvested during the kharif season. The annual per capita income is around Rs 10,000 (assuming a family size of five). There is hardly any second or third crop due to lack of irrigation facilities and as a result the community also depends on minor forest produce like bamboo. Mahua, persimmon And Chironji for supplemental income. The district, with about 67 percent of its land officially classified as forest, is one of the most heavily forested in the country.
Forests are decreasing rapidly all over the world. guess we lose between 5 and 10 million hectares of forest Every year, deforestation becomes one of the biggest sources of carbon emissions. The world’s forests are a major carbon sink, persisting 860 million gigatons of carbon Or the equivalent of a century of fossil fuel emissions at our current rates, according to the World Resources Institute. As a result, efforts to halt forest loss and increase forest cover are attracting significant investment from governments, philanthropists and corporations. Some of the largest non-governmental investments in forestry are now coming through carbon finance, which includes forestry credits. about 50 percent Or more carbon offsets are being sold in voluntary markets.
need for supplemental income
Sachin’s position is not unusual. Across Maharashtra, more and more farmers are leaving agriculture for other livelihoods or looking for ways to supplement their farm income because of climate change-induced erratic rainfall, land degradation, low water levels and uncertain farm prices. Yields and profits have declined. This is blatant social injustice: India’s agricultural and tribal communities have contributed almost nothing to greenhouse emissions over the past century, but are projected to be among the worst affected by climate change. As per the data provided by the Union Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, in the last six years only, 69 million hectares Or 40 percent of the total cultivable land suffered catastrophic crop loss, which negatively affected farmers’ income.
The sub-divisional magistrate believed that a high-quality, forestry-based offset project could help farmers like Sachin earn a steady source of supplemental income from the sale of climate-resilient forest harvests, and reduce carbon credits. Can also protect and restore forest cover. , The project, through reforestation and assisted natural regeneration, also had the potential to bring back lost biodiversity to the region. Unsustainable logging and massive forest fires have led to dramatic declines in tree species personnel, HiradaAnd Beheda Which once used to be in abundance.
Nature-based carbon offset projects, if well designed and implemented correctly, can help farmers like Sachin, who are victims of climate change, become climate stewards. These projects provide the dual benefit of helping communities mitigate and adapt to climate change. As the climate warms, rainfall patterns more erratic and extreme weather events (eg cyclones, floods, pest attacks) more frequent, investing in enhancing ecosystem resilience pays off. There are biodiverse forests and agricultural farms better at customizing For fast changing weather.
So in the case of Sachin and other farmers in Etapalli, who depend only on rice crop as their primary source of income, bamboo and other fruits and wild trees (like personnel, Hirada, Beheda, Mahua, Chironji, Bell, Arjun) can improve biodiversity, provide them with income from additional sources such as carbon offsets or the sale of sustainably harvested forest produce, and increase climate-resilience (as pest attacks or erratic rainfall can make certain types of crop destroys, but not all). These trees also sequester carbon dioxide from the air and their leaves help increase soil organic carbon and microbial diversity.
Read also: Markets are questioning the quality of carbon credits, community-based products
Collaborative Carbon Offset Project
Sachin and a few other farmers from Krishnar in Etapalli are now part of a carbon credit project that is being implemented farmer for forest (F4F), is a Pune-based social enterprise working to protect and restore India’s biodiverse forest cover in close collaboration with communities. The project, developed with the support of philanthropists and CSR donors, is spread over 1,000 hectares (2,400 acres) and six districts in Maharashtra and works on increasing tree cover on unused agricultural and common land.
The land is selected and afforested keeping in mind the issues of land ownership, soil health, water availability and ecological viability. Farmers are provided with extension services, saplings, irrigation and fencing assistance, organic manure and mulch worth about Rs 55,000 during plantation. Farmers have to pay only 10 percent of the total cost. The plantation farmers are provided cash or labor assistance either through the organization or through government schemes to ensure they get a good harvest from the crop and the trees are healthy. Carbon sequestration, tree health and tree counts are monitored through in-field measurements and drone and satellite data to obtain accurate estimates of how much carbon is being sequestered by each farmer’s trees and soil. 70 per cent of the gross carbon revenue generated will be kept by the farmer, while 30 per cent will be kept by the organization to cover its operational expenses.
On average, a farmer in the F4F program can earn anywhere between Rs 25,000 to Rs 65,000 per acre per acre in forest harvest and carbon revenue combined, a significant improvement from the Rs 8,000 to Rs 10,000 they now earn through paddy cultivation. Earning from , Besides, the paddy crop in Gadchiroli is frequently failing due to unseasonal rains and floods.
A carbon offset project, while sequestering carbon can also be effectively used to raise awareness in the community.
In addition to helping communities transition to agroforestry and forestry models to supplement their farm income, the Carbon Credit Project trains farmers and communities on carbon markets and provides scientific and climate education to area schools.
Under the Carbon Credit Project, F4F is also running a mobile science laboratory in collaboration with the Tribal Development Department in Maharashtra. This imaginatively designed bus, which houses three teachers, has scientific equipment that can be used to demonstrate and teach various experiments and scientific concepts to children in classes VIII to XII. The van is currently running in 16 residential ashram schools in Etapalli, Bhamragarh and Dhanora blocks of Gadchiroli. In addition to teaching children physics, chemistry and biology, the curriculum also includes contemporary topics in climate change, ecology and astronomy.
Clearly, carbon offsets have the potential to help farmers restore unused agricultural land, degraded forest land, and increase their income. However, some key questions remain: will carbon markets properly compensate farmers for the ecological restoration work being done and are carbon markets really making a dent in our climate-change fight?
In view of the large farming community of India, classification as a megadiverse countries species richness and status global leader In the fight against climate change, it is uniquely poised to take advantage of growing carbon market activity to enhance farmer prosperity and restore ecological prosperity. To do this successfully, it is critical that farmers are provided with timely and accurate information on how carbon markets work, given a significant share of carbon revenue and supported with market linkages for the forest produce they produce is done. Unlike agriculture, it can take four to 15 years to reap a financial return from deforestation. To motivate farmers to take up horticulture and forestry on a large scale, it is important for them to have financial support for the inputs and care required to plant trees and obtain a quality crop. This is where government policy and the philanthropic sector can play an important role.
For an individual farmer, navigating the myriad requirements, stringent regulations and complex sequestration calculations of the carbon market can be a daunting task. However, with the right information, adequate financial support and transparency on project costs and revenues, farmers like Sachin can effectively leverage carbon markets to grow their existing crops while playing an important role in sequestering world carbon and restoring ecosystems. To reduce the financial crisis. True climate champion.
Shubham Gupta is an IAS officer of 2019 batch who is presently posted as Assistant Collector, Etapalli and Project Officer, Integrated Tribal Development Project, Bhamragarh. He tweeted @ShubhamGupta_11. Kritika Ravi Shankar He is a co-founder of Farmers for Forest, which protects and restores biodiverse forest cover in close collaboration with communities. Thoughts are personal.
This is the final article in a three-part series that explores India’s climate crisis and the potential of carbon credit markets to mitigate environmental damage and spur economic growth. read all articles Here,
(Editing by Therese Sudip)