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HomePosts Tagged "Dr Usha Barwale Zehr"
Agbiologicals, Agribusiness, Carbon Farming, Collaborations, Company News, Environment, India, Start ups, Sustainability

 The biological solution significantly reduces methane emissions from rice fields while substantially increasing paddy yields and generating additional income from carbon credits for the farmer.

The methane emissions from rice fields (about 160 million hectares globally) is one of the largest contributors of Greenhouse Gas emission from Agriculture.  Grow Indigo has built the largest Carbon program in India by promoting regenerative agricultural practices in rice growing areas and is recognised as a leading innovator in carbon solutions.  String Bio is a global leader in developing innovative solutions to address methane emissions from rice fields. By capturing methane to turn it into usable crop nutrition products, String Bio has built solutions to help farmers grow more resilient crops and improve the quality of their produce.

The proprietary technology developed by String Bio, “CleanRise®” is a methane-oxidising bacteria-based formulation product, offers a promising solution to significantly reduce methane emissions from rice fields while substantially increasing paddy yields and generating additional income from carbon credits for the farmer.

Powered by CleanRise, Grow Indigo’s leadership in sustainable farming solutions is further strengthened by addressing both conventional flooded and direct seeded rice in its carbon programs while creating substantial impact on farmer livelihood”.

“The collaboration increases the options available to farmers for improving resilience in rice cultivation and CleanRise is a unique product that we will add to our offering and scale it rapidly to over a million acres,” said Dr Usha Barwale Zehr, Executive Director at Grow Indigo.

“The partnership is a clear example of the whole being greater than the sum of its parts – between CleanRise and Grow Indigo’s carbon platform we maximise the benefits to the farmer, the rice value chain and the global climate ecosystem”, said Vinod Kumar, Managing Director at String Bio.

 The biological solution significantly reduces methane emissions

Agribusiness, Carbon Farming, Company News, Finance, India, Investments

Grow India operates the largest carbon farming platform for smallholder farmers in India. The platform includes four carbon programs across 13 states.

Grow Indigo, a leading science enabled sustainable agriculture company has successfully raised over USD $8 million in a recent funding round with a cumulative capital raise of more than USD $23 million to date. The round saw interest from investors globally including participation from Indigo Ag, Mahyco and individuals. Grow India is a joint venture between Indigo Ag and Mahyco that was formed in 2018.

Grow India operates the largest carbon farming platform for smallholder farmers in India. The platform includes four carbon programs across 13 states and cumulatively aim to reduce/ remove emissions by 20Mt CO2e annually from agriculture. About 800,000 acres have already been enrolled in the Company’s programs.

“With sustainability at its core, Grow Indigo has now demonstrated adoption of biological inputs and carbon solutions at scale by farmers,” said Dr Usha Barwale Zehr, Executive Chairman of Grow Indigo. “This lays the foundation for rapid growth of sustainable agriculture in the coming years.” 

In partnership with leading research organizations, the Company uses its science capabilities including satellite imagery analysis to monitor and measure soil carbon sequestration and on-farm GHG emission reductions. Grow Indigo is also helping food, beverage and apparel companies reduce their scope 3 emissions in their supply chains with sustainably grown crops. Farmers are incentivised based on the verified outcomes of carbon mitigation efforts, and the company expects to enroll over 7.5 million acres in the coming years. Carbon, a new revenue stream for farmers, could become the 5th largest agri-export commodity from India, and is expected to generate an additional USD $7 billion annually as income for smallholder farmers by 2030.

The company’s biological products today are used on 4 million acres in 16 states with an extensive network of channel partners. These products enable farmers to reduce their chemical inputs and increase resilience through enhanced nutrient use efficiency, water use efficiency, reclaiming soil health, insect-disease control using biopesticides and increased ability to mitigate abiotic stresses using biostimulants. With a strong focus on research and development, the company has a robust pipeline of new products.

Grow Indigo has built a skilled team of over 250 Agronomists, Researchers, Data Scientists, Engineers, and Sales Professionals, dedicated to scaling up climate solutions through regenerative agricultural practices.

Grow India operates the largest carbon farming