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.
With this funding, Grow Indigo will accelerate farmer enrolment and scale carbon farming initiatives.
Grow Indigo, India’s pioneering agri-tech company, has successfully raised $10 million from British International Investment (BII), the UK’s development finance institution and impact investor. Established in 2018, the Company is leading the carbon farming revolution with over 2.5 million acres of smallholder farmland already enrolled across 7 states. This strategic funding will accelerate the expansion of Grow Indigo’s transformative sustainability programs across India.
By encouraging farmers to adopt regenerative agricultural practices, Grow Indigo is creating a revolutionary income stream through soil carbon credits and sustainable produce for Scope 3 reductions. These credits, generated from carbon removals as well as greenhouse gas emissions reductions, are sold to corporations who seek to support resilient agri-food supply chains while meeting their sustainability goals. The majority of carbon credit revenue goes directly to participating farmers, improving their livelihoods.
With robust measurement, reporting, and verification (MRV) systems, Grow Indigo’s carbon programs offer corporations a transparent, high-impact option to meet sustainability goals while supporting smallholders and creating healthier rural livelihoods. The company also partners with food and fashion companies to facilitate sustainable sourcing and reduce their supply chain emissions.
Ambitious Growth and Impact Goals
Grow Indigo believes carbon farming has the potential to become one of India’s largest agricultural export commodities by 2030, generating billions in additional income for smallholder farmers while boosting soil health, conserving water and reducing the country’s agri emissions.
With four carbon farming projects at different stages of development and the first carbon credits expected to be issued soon, Grow Indigo is positioned for rapid growth. The company aims to enrol millions of farmers and acres within the next two years.
“Regenerative agriculture is the future of farming, not only for improving soil health, conserving water but also for creating improved livelihoods for millions of smallholder farmers,” said Dr. Usha Barwale Zehr, Executive Director of Grow Indigo. “With this funding, we will accelerate farmer enrolment and scale carbon farming initiatives. Maintaining integrity of the sustainability outcomes, by way of carbon credits and Scope 3 emission reductions, is of utmost importance to us and will bring maximum value to farmers with our science-backed MRV offerings. We are thrilled to be partnering with BII to pursue these critical objectives for India’s sustainability objectives.”
Srini Nagarajan, Managing Director and Head of Asia at BII, said: “Rice, wheat, and maize are staple foods in India, cultivated by numerous smallholder farmers who are vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. Through our innovative pools of capital, we are proud to support pioneering businesses like Grow Indigo that address adoption barriers by harnessing the potential of carbon markets. This initiative not only reduces carbon emissions but also enhances farmers’ climate resilience and increases their incomes. This is aligned with the Government’s policies to support regenerative agri practices.”
Jennifer Kaul, Deputy Director, Investments, South Asia at the British Deputy High Commission in Mumbai, said: “India’s strong resolve in the adoption of regenerative agricultural practices is noteworthy. The agricultural sector plays a key role, both for food security and as a valuable export commodity. The UK government is committed to investments that support our climate and sustainability goals, not least in the agricultural sector. British International Investment’s support to Grow Indigo is a welcome step in this direction and reflects the deep partnership between our nations, which is underpinned by growth and sustainability.”
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.
Smallholder farmers in India can be a significant contributor in our sustainability journey. Technology and innovation have always been important for sustainable farming, from the high yielding varieties of green revolution to more recent adoption of Bt cotton. With these and other technologies like agronomic practices, combined with synthetic inputs, we saw a steady increase in crop productivity over the last decades. In recent years, this increase in crop productivity has plateaued and some of these practices have also left a large environmental footprint. Coupled with the water crisis and the climate crisis we find ourselves in, our smallholder farmers will be disproportionately affected by adverse climate events with respect to productivity and their livelihood at large. By Usha Barwale Zehr, Vikas Chandak and Umang Agrawal, Grow Indigo
Sustainable Agriculture is actually a cost effective and scalable solution to some of these challenges and additionally can offer a new source of income, and more resilience to adverse climate events.
At Grow Indigo (a partnership between Mahyco and Indigo Ag), we are focused on bringing technologies that are sustainable in these smallholder agri systems. The policies of Government of India further supports some of these initiatives like the inclusion of bio-stimulants with synthetic fertilisers or other chemicals to ensure low chemical residue harvest. Recent advances in the microbial input space are providing a promising alternative to the synthetic solutions which have been historically available. Some examples include,use of biofertiliser that are specially formulated to provide maximum benefit for a given crop (Prerak soya, cotton, pulses, wheat and other seed treatments), Soil application formulations like Oorjit Granule and Growrrhizae, biopesticides like Colossal and Bhujbal, foliar nitrogen fixers, plant growth promoting microbes and endophytes which provide enhanced Nutrient Use Efficiency, Water Use Efficiency, abiotic stress tolerance to various crops. Our partner, Indigo Ag has focused on endophytes, with a library of more than 40,000 endophytes and seeds treated with this class of treatments, providing stress tolerance be it drought, water use and other stresses. The smallholder farmers have become more and more aware about the benefits of the consortia treatments that Grow Indigo offers to address various challenges faced by them. With increasing use of these innovative inputs, the impact on soils, water quality and greenhouse gas (GHG) emission will be improved leading to an overall positive impact on agriculture while not impacting the productivity of the crop negatively.
Climate change has posed a significant threat to agri-food systems, especially in highly vulnerable smallholder farming regions like India. While agriculture contributes about 16 per cent of gross GHG emissions in India, it is also a substantial sink for mitigating climate change through regenerative farming practices. Practices like direct dry seeding of rice, reduced tillage, nutrient management and more have the potential to reduce the GHG emissions in addition to improving soil organic carbon, thus making agriculture the most efficient and scalable solution in addressing climate change. In smallholder farming systems, the beneficial effects of coupling these practices with voluntary carbon markets also provides an opportunity for farmer income enhancement.
Much work has been done on conservation agricultural practices in different agro ecosystems. However, the regenerative agricultural practices today are implemented only by a small percentage of farmers. These practices include, minimal tillage, cover cropping, crop diversification, use of biofertilisers, and perennial cropping, among others, which increase soil’s carbon content, water permeability, and water retention, which also increase a crop’s ability to withstand drought, flooding and temperature stresses. As per expert estimates, regenerative farming practices, combined with increased penetration of new technologies, have the potential to return the carbon levels in agricultural soils from an average of ~0.5 per cent back to ~1.5 per cent.
To catalyse the adoption of regenerative agriculture, Grow Indigo has launched a project in Punjab and Haryana which enrolls farmers in a carbon farming programme, ultimately allowing them to participate in a voluntary carbon marketplace. The monetary incentive from this programme will motivate the farmers to implement regenerative farming practices. Use of digital agronomy tools and satellite imagery analysis to measure and verify soil carbon sequestration and on-farm GHG emission levels will be essential for scaling such projects.
The objective is to pay farmers for increasing the carbon content of their soil and reducing overall GHG emissions. We are working with our partners to identify and implement regenerative practice changes, and measure the impact of those practices in terms of tonnes of carbon sequestered or GHG emission reductions. Once the impact has been verified, farmers are paid based on the amount of Carbon sequestration/GHG reduction after the carbon credits are issued and traded. Carbon credit, which is one tonne CO2 equivalent of GHG emission reduced or carbon stored in the soil, can be thought of as a data product, where the veracity, transparency, and traceability of the data has a direct implication on the quality of the carbon credit. Quality of the carbon credit is critical to get the right price for the carbon credit generated, and monitoring and verification at scale is important to make the system work in smallholder systems. Once the farmers register in the programme and continue to implement the regenerative agri practices, they will be eligible to receive payment for carbon credits generated for 20 years, conditional upon following these climate-smart practices in future.
Grow Indigo has already registered with Verra (a global leader in Carbon credit verification) and has initiated a project to start the carbon credit generation activities. With the project, Grow Indigo is enrolling farmers in the programme in partnership with Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR)-Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI) and International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) to promote practices which enhance sustainability and regenerative agriculture.
This programme creates an additional income avenue for the farmers, and contributes positively in our efforts for sustainability in the long run.
Agriculture digitisation is also paving the way for knowledge dissemination and sharing. Farmer advisories which are on mobile platforms are changing how farmers access information and such information is becoming available almost in real time. These digital technologies are also strengthening data which is being deployed to better design and implement timely and actionable advisories related to agronomy and agriculture marketing.
These are just a handful of examples of how technologies will shape the future of agriculture in the near term and get us closer to our sustainability goals. What we do today determines what the future will look like, and agriculture will be a positive contributor if we strengthen the above sustainability practices.
