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

• Intro Presentation

Notes from July 21 call and Aug 30 checkin

• Upcoming project in North Bihar (Araria district) with JEEViKA and TERI

• “As a part of the sustainable and regenerative agriculture program, 200 solar units will be introduced to the field to generate solar energy that will be distributed to farmers across the region for the purpose of energy-efficient irrigation. VNV anticipates an approximate generation of 50,000 carbon credits per annum, which will lead to the provision of innovative solar-driven facilities, and thereby enable the farmers to transition to improved agricultural practices, conscious of energy usage and the impact on climate change.”

• 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 are:

  • Decrease use of nitrogen fertilizers

  • Agroforestry

  • Cover crops / nitrogen fixes trees / plants

  • Switch from conventional to reduced or conservation tillage

  • Avoid burning crop residue and switch to incorporating residue

  • Solar water pumps to decrease use of fossil fuels for farming activities

  • Organic amendments: manure application, composting, mulching

  • Kitchen gardens to improve access to nutrition

  • Switch from continuous flooding to AWD

• 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