Intellecap and TRIF launch carbon finance platform for 1mn smallholder farmers

Mumbai

Intellecap and Transform Rural India Foundation (TRIF) on August 8 announced the launch of a national carbon finance platform that will help Indian smallholder farmers leverage climate/carbon finance for sustainable agroforestry, climate-smart agriculture and other activities that can result in carbon sequestration and mitigation. The platform brings together more than one million smallholder farmers who will be provided support and training for climate-smart agriculture and agroforestry.

Globally, there is a growing market demand for carbon credits from projects that provide co-benefits like community economic development, improved health outcomes, biodiversity enhancement, gender equality, etc. However, Indian carbon producers are unable to reap the benefits due to poor awareness about climate/carbon financing mechanisms, limited technical capacity to design and implement high-quality carbon projects, and lack of clarity on fair price sharing and legal arrangements, among other aspects. There is a need for a platform that would enhance the capacity of smallholder farmers to effectively participate in the voluntary carbon market.

The newly launched platform will play a key role in empowering smallholder farmers by generating awareness of different types of carbon projects (e.g., agroforestry, clean cooking, waste management, etc.) and their benefits, enhancing the technical capacity to design and implement high-quality carbon projects at scale, supporting monetizing of carbon assets and pre-financing of projects, establishing rules on fair practices for carbon benefit sharing, and improving the resilience of vulnerable communities to climate change through an improved watershed, cooler microclimate, soil erosion prevention, and enhanced biodiversity.

The platform will be registering different types of carbon offset projects in which smallholder farmers would be able to participate and benefit from the monetization of the carbon credits that will be generated under an independent carbon crediting mechanism in the voluntary carbon market. The global voluntary carbon market is expected to be worth $200bn by 2050.

Speaking on the launch of this platform, Anish Kumar, Co-Lead, Transforming Rural India Foundation (TRIF), said, “At TRIF we are excited about launching this platform which will provide fair pricing while ensuring an increase in income of smallholder farmers and vulnerable communities as well as supporting India achieve its net zero goals sustainably. While climate finance and carbon finance are becoming a major source of financing climate action for enterprises and big corporates, smallholder farmers struggle to get access to climate finance for the projects that are not only producing climate outcomes but also creating jobs and building resilience of the local communities. This platform aims to be the guide and champion of these smallholder farmers for climate/carbon finance.”

Santosh K. Singh, Managing Director, Agri and Climate, Intellecap, said, “We are committed to increasing smallholder farmers’ income and transitioning them to climate-smart agriculture. Climate finance, specifically carbon finance, provides a great opportunity for these farmers to undertake climate action projects, which would not be possible in absence of carbon finance. The platform also helps corporates and other stakeholders who are committed to net zero goals and looking to offset their residual carbon footprints from projects which not only give them carbon emission reduction but also empower and benefit local communities.”

Intellecap, a part of the Aavishkaar Group, is a pioneer in building enabling ecosystems and channeling capital to create and nurture a sustainable and equitable society. TRIF is a civil society initiative to bring about a paradigm change in the key indicators of rural life.