World Bank to buy carbon credits from Indian farmers

NEW DELHI: Small and marginal farmers in Orissa and Andhra Pradesh would now be able to earn some additional income by selling carbon credits to World Bank.

World Bank's BioCarbon Fund (BiCF) on Tuesday signed an agreement to buy 2.76 lakh tonne of carbon dioxide equivalent emission reduction between 2008 and 2017, with an option to purchase an additional 3.70 lakh tonnes of CERs.

The farmers will sell the CERs or carbon credits by planting trees on their degraded lands. The project has been jointly developed by JK Paper Ltd in Orissa and a Hyderabad-based cooperative society VEDA MACS Ltd in Andhra Pradesh, a World Bank release said here.

As part of the agreement, 2,800 farmers in Andhra Pradesh and Orissa will make plantations in their 3,500 hectares of dry and waste lands with the help of JK papers and VEDA.

JK Paper would provide saplings for the plantation and purchase all the produce at mutually agreed rates.

"The agreement is the first of its kind in India. It is India's first land use and land use change and forestry project to sell emission reductions earned through carbon sequestration in newly-established agro-forestry plantations," Martien Van Nieuwkoop, World Bank's task team leader for the project, said.