All Rice No Water

“Rice is a critical food source for much of the world’s population, but also produces an estimated 10% of global anthropogenic methane emissions and uses 30% of the world’s freshwater. Rice paddies are regularly flooded, and it is in this stagnant water that microbes produce methane through a process called methanogenesis, which can only happen in the absence of oxygen. By reducing the amount of water in the paddy, farmers reduce methane emissions.

Mitti Labs projects promote climate-smart agricultural practices such as Alternate Wetting and Drying (AWD), direct seeding, and controlled rice irrigation among Indian rice farmers. These practices can cut methane emissions by 50% and water use by 15-30%.

Rice farming occupies almost 44 million hectares of land in India alone, and AWD is not common practice. Rice methane represents some of the lowest-hanging fruit in terms of superpollutant mitigation, but smallholder farmers have no reason to implement these practices without the incentive of carbon revenues.

– Johanna Depenthal, Director of Project Research 

Project Type: Nature-Based Reduction

Carbon Standard: Isometric

Vintage: 2024

Additionality: While AWD dates to the 1980s as a water conservation method, concerns about decreases in yield mean that lack of agronomic expertise has been a major barrier to adoption. Yield is expected to increase for farmers within the project, however, and was demonstrated to do so in the first monitoring period.

Permanence: Since methane emissions from a given growing period are avoided, they cannot be emitted later, resulting in permanent avoidance.

Site Visit: Cool Effect team members visited a U.S.-based Tradewater ODS destruction project in September 2023

Alternate Wetting & Drying reduces methane emissions by draining fields as crops grow, eliminating the anaerobic environment where microbes produce methane. AWD helps both mitigate climate change and helps farmers adapt to decreased water availability.

This project works with 5,910 farmers across 8,580 hectares of farmland. A key component of the project’s work in promoting AWD is the installation of the “pani pipe” (also known as a field water tube), which is partially submerged underground and allows farmers to easily monitor the sub-soil water depth. With this information, farmers can flood their fields only when necessary, saving water and reducing methane emissions without hurting yields.

The project’s credits are verified by both satellite radar and field-level measurements. Mitti’s GeoAI platform fuses high-resolution synthetic aperture (SAR) data with field measurements collected through a farmer-facing app called Mitti Collect. Crop and physical models then convert this data into emission reductions.

• Reduces methane, a superpollutant far more potent than CO2 in the near term
• Saves 15-30% of irrigation water in a water-stressed region
• Increases farmer household incomes by an average of 15%
• Improves air quality by prohibiting stubble burning on participating farms
• Verified by both satellite radar and field-level measurements
• Supports 5,910 farmers and created 76 permanent jobs

• Carbon finance is needed to overcome farmers’ concerns about yield and lack of agronomic support
• Farmers manage their own irrigation, so drainage practices must be monitored every season
• Verification across thousands of small plots depends on satellite and field data working together accurately
• Current crediting period is 5 years, so long-term impact depends on renewal