Highlight
VNV is a developer of carbon offset projects
Launching a program in Bihar w TERI in Araria and Purnia
Open to utilizing our MRV platform and leveraging video based extension in their project
Notes from July 21 call and Aug 30 checkin
Upcoming project in North Bihar (Araria district) with JEEViKA and TERI
VNV is providing solar pumps and promoting certain climate smart practices (eg, avoiding crop burning) and aims to generate carbon offset credits
JEEViKA has provided a list of ~100k farmers and there is an in-person planning meeting scheduled for mid-September. JEEViKA VRPs will support farmer mobilization and data collection
Goal is for Kharif 2022 or Rabi 2022/2023 to the first season during which farmers earn offset revenue; working on mobilization and piloting various aspects of the program between now and then
The practices that VNV is promoting as part of their climate smart ag work include organic amendments (avoiding crop residue burning fits here as well), agroforestry/tree planting and water efficiency. They are not doing much with no tillage at the moment.
On water measurements, installing flow meters and IoT chips on about 3% of all plots covered in a project (sounds like this is in line with approved project methodologies) and taking farmer logbook data on # of hours of pumping
VNV has a number of offset projects and is working with GoldStandard to get the credits certified
Key Pain points:
Land records: the VNV field team is manually mapping plots but they polygons / land demarcation they are creating based on farmer input don't match district records. There is only a 25% match at the moment and VNV hasn't yet figured out how to resolve cases where there this disconnect btwn govt and farmer reported records exists. This is cropping up all the states where they have programs; MH, MP, Jharkhand and its a big deal given recipient of the credit needs to hold the land title and proceeds are based on land size
Reliability of data: Local Ag research institute has a regional average on say, tons of phosphorus applied, but the farmer survey data is all over the place; from 3 to 7 tons. Auditors want receipts but most farmers don’t have them. This leaves the VNV field team in a position where are circling back with farmers to validate and correct data entries. In their maize program, VNV is working through FPOs who supply inputs and they actually control what the farmers apply which helps but this not scalable.
Background on VNV Advisory
Overall ag portfolio covers 500k farmers / 500k hectares in India, Bangladesh, Myanmar. Major themes are organic amendments, water efficiency, and agroforestry.
Network of ~200 carbon offset buyers, 10% of whom are in India.
Started carbon offset work in 2006 with energy access, moved into cookstoves (+5mn credits generated) and working in sustainable ag and forestry credits since 2016
Have a project underway in Gadchiroli, MH focus on SRI / AWD. Expect to generate ~2 credits per hectare per year and they are selling for ~$16 per ton. using the CDM methane emissions methodology and listing via Gold Standard.
For other land use projects, plan to use Sustainable Ag Land Management methodology from Verra but working through a realistic MRV program.
Also have a project with maize farmers where proceeds from the offsets are being used by FPO to invest in processing equipment
VNV will do a free feasibility study and works with the registries, sets up an appropriate MRV program and finds buyers for the credits.
On regulatory issues, Sandeep acknowledged there is some uncertainty related to Article 6 of the Paris Agreement (what counts towards NDC limits, what sorts of activities are exempted) but this will drag on for a while and is not a blocker for buyers at the moment. Very unlikely that whatever is decided will make credits generated by an active project unsellable
In some cases, VNV pays farmers a discounted rate for the credits up-front to accelerate payments