Thursday, December 27, 2012

Carbon credits yield AP ryots a fortune

Times of India, Dec 27, 2012
VISAKHAPATNAM: In 2007, P Narsimharaju ofGarudabili had never heard of carbon credits. Neither had he heard of earning revenue by just growing trees. Unable to capitalise on the 60 acres of degraded land that he owned in Anantagiri Mandal of Visakhaptnam district, Narsimharajuwas facing an uncertain future.

However, after becoming part of a programme developed by Veda Climate Change Solutions Limited (VCCSL) to sell carbon credits, his fortunes changed. Half a decade later he has banked in Rs 1.63 lakh for growing eucalyptus and an additional Rs 28 lakh for selling the wood to a paper mill.

And Narsimharaju is not alone. He is among 1500 farmers owning 1600 hectares in Andhra Pradesh and Orissa that claim to have become the first lot of farmers in Asia and the second in the world to rake in the moolah by selling carbon credits.

The 1,500 farmers of Srikakulam, Vizianagaram and Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh and Rayagada, Koraput and Kalahandi in Odisha earned Rs 85.28 lakh by selling 79,811 carbon credits, for which they received their cheques on Wednesday at a programme organised at Gitam University in the city.

Expressing his happiness on receiving the cheque, Narsimharaju said, "We'll continue to be part of the project in the coming years." The farmers were part of a project aimed at improving rural livelihoods through carbon sequestration by adopting environmental friendly technology based agro-forestry practices in partnership with Biocarbon Fund of the World Bank.

Another farmer, Shanmukha Rao D of Vizianagaram, who earned around Rs 58,000 conceded that the going was tough and said that support in the form of providing manure and technical support is needed to sustain the effort.

According to VCCSL executive director Sai Kishore Nellore, the project was initiated in 2004 with the intention of improving the lives of farmers in rural areas by allowing them to raise tree plantations on highly degraded agricultural lands. Following that, a project idea note was prepared and subsequently a team from the World Bank visited the country for inspection in 2006. "We conceptualised the idea and wanted to contribute globally by using a local platform," Nellore said.

During the next year, VCCSL entered into an Emission Reduction Purchase Agreement (ERPA) with the World Bank for sale of carbon credits generated under this project at $4.05 per carbon credit. Each carbon credit is equal to one tonne of carbon dioxide sequestered.

With the project implemented successfully, Nellore said the next plan was to grow mango and cashew by including 2,500 farmers with 2159 acres in the state. On the one hand, it will prevent monoculture crop and on the other it would help them test different levels of carbon sequestration that can be achieved by growing variety of trees.

While growing trees earned them carbon credits, selling the wood after a period of five years to paper mills helped them earn additional income. M V Ramana Murthy, manager (plantation) of J K Paper Limited, said, "Farmers are receiving a net benefit of Rs 3,000 per tonne of eucalyptus grown. This is excluding transport." Also, J K Paper Mill Limited provides high quality plant species throught its plantation research centre.

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