Daijiworld Media Network - New Delhi

New Delhi, Sep 14: Agri-tech start-up Grow Indigo has paid around 2,550 farmers amounts ranging from Rs 3,000 to Rs 15,000 for more than 57,000 agricultural carbon credits, marking one of the first instances of a company in India making direct payouts to farmers for such credits.

The payments were made from Grow Indigo’s own funds even though the credits have not yet been fully sold to prospective buyers, Umang Agarwal, Chief Operating Officer, Carbon at Grow Indigo, told Business Standard.

The payout covers carbon credits accumulated between 2019 and 2022. Grow Indigo, according to its website, is jointly promoted by Maharashtra Hybrid Seeds Company Ltd (Mahyco) and US-based Indigo Ag.

Agarwal said farmers were originally entitled to 75 per cent of the net revenue generated from the sale of the carbon credits under their agreement with the company. However, the payment process was delayed due to various factors, including difficulties in finding buyers.

To address the delay, Grow Indigo offered farmers the option of receiving an immediate fixed one-time payment instead of waiting for the carbon-credit transactions to be completed. Most of the farmers opted for the fixed payment, Agarwal said.

He added that if Grow Indigo eventually sells the credits at a price higher than the amount paid to farmers, the difference would be recorded as profit. If the sale price is lower, the company would account for the difference as a loss.

Almost all of the farmers involved are from paddy- and wheat-growing regions of Punjab and Haryana.

In a related development, a multi-year study by Chaudhary Sarwan Kumar Himachal Pradesh Krishi Vishvavidyalaya (CSKHPKV) and technology-based rice seed company Savannah Seeds has found that direct-seeded rice using SAVA-134 FullPage can significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions and improve water efficiency.

FullPage is a patented rice-cropping solution developed by Savannah Seeds.

The research found that, compared with conventional transplanted rice systems, direct seeding of SAVA-134 FullPage reduced methane emissions by nearly 90 per cent. It also recorded the highest water productivity, improved soil health and showed strong potential for carbon-credit generation.

“Our goal was to evaluate practical solutions that can help farmers improve productivity while reducing environmental impact,” said Dr Dhanbir Singh, assistant soil chemist in the Department of Soil Science at CSKHPKV.

He said the findings demonstrated that direct-seeded rice could play an important role in developing more climate-smart and resource-efficient rice production systems.

Rice is cultivated across more than 164 million hectares globally, with Asia accounting for around 90 per cent of world production. Conventional rice cultivation largely relies on transplanted systems involving flooded fields, high labour requirements and substantial water use, while the flooded conditions also contribute to methane emissions.