{"id":80722,"date":"2026-01-03T11:15:06","date_gmt":"2026-01-03T05:45:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=80722"},"modified":"2026-01-03T11:15:06","modified_gmt":"2026-01-03T05:45:06","slug":"carbon-credits-a-new-income-stream-for-rice-farmers-via-awd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/carbon-credits-a-new-income-stream-for-rice-farmers-via-awd\/","title":{"rendered":"Carbon Credits: A New Income Stream for Rice Farmers via AWD"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><b>AWD Latest News<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Getting farmers to adopt climate-friendly practices is challenging, especially when it involves high upfront costs, new machinery, or risks of yield loss. The challenge is sharper in India, where over 86% of farmers are small or marginal, holding 2 hectares or less.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In this context, low-effort, high-impact agricultural practices become crucial. One such practice in rice cultivation is Alternate Wetting and Drying (AWD), which offers climate benefits without heavy investment or productivity losses.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><b>Traditional Rice Cultivation and Methane Emissions<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In traditional rice cultivation, paddy seeds are first raised in nurseries and transplanted after 25\u201330 days into the main field, which is about ten times larger than the nursery area.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">After transplantation, the crop typically grows for 90\u2013100 days, extending to 120 days or more for some varieties.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">For nearly the first 65 days of the cropping period, fields are kept continuously flooded with 4\u20135 cm of standing water.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This practice mainly helps suppress weeds by creating oxygen-deficient conditions that prevent weed seed germination.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Flooding becomes less necessary after the vegetative growth and tillering stage, when panicle formation begins.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3><b>Methane Formation in Flooded Fields<\/b><\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Continuous flooding creates an anaerobic soil environment, ideal for methanogenic microbes that decompose organic matter.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">During this process, carbon from plant residues reacts with hydrogen from water, producing methane.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Methane is a highly potent greenhouse gas, with a global warming potential about 28 times greater than carbon dioxide over a 100-year period, making flooded rice cultivation a significant contributor to agricultural emissions.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><b>Alternate Wetting and Drying (AWD): A Climate-Friendly Alternative<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Alternate Wetting and Drying (AWD) replaces continuous flooding with <\/span><b>periodic drying<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and <\/span><b>re-flooding<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> of paddy fields.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This breaks the anaerobic conditions that favour methane-producing microbes, thereby reducing emissions.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3><b>AWD Schedule in Practice<\/b><\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Farmers are advised to:<\/span>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"2\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Keep fields flooded for the first 20 days after transplantation<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"2\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">During days 21\u201365, allow the field to dry for two cycles of six days each, draining water to 10\u201315 cm below the soil surface before re-flooding<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3><b>Field Evidence from Telangana<\/b><\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A study by Mitti Labs Ltd during the 2024 kharif season covered 30 paddy fields across three villages in Warangal district.<\/span>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"2\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">15 fields followed AWD<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"2\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">15 fields followed continuous flooding (CF)<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Water use:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> AWD fields used 3.14 million litres per acre, compared to 4.96 million litres under CF<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Methane emissions:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> AWD emitted 3.5 tonnes CO\u2082-equivalent per hectare, versus 6 tonnes under CF<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Crucially, grain yields remained <\/span><b>unchanged<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> at about 2.5 tonnes per acre under both AWD and CF.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This makes AWD a low-effort, high-impact practice that conserves water and cuts emissions without affecting productivity.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><b>Carbon Credits: A New Income Stream for Rice Farmers<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Alternate Wetting and Drying (AWD) offers farmers more than resource efficiency.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Experts highlight AWD\u2019s potential to generate carbon credits, enabling farmers to monetise methane reductions.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Carbon credits are built on direct methane measurements using field chambers, laboratory analysis, geo-tagging, boundary mapping, and satellite imagery\u2014creating a rigorous monitoring, reporting, and verification (MRV) system suitable for domestic and international markets.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Data centres, airlines, and other energy- and water-intensive industries<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> purchase credits to offset emissions and meet <\/span><b>net-zero targets<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, driving demand for verified agricultural abatement.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3><b>Farmer Earnings Potential<\/b><\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Methane abatement credits trade at $15\u201325 per tonne CO\u2082e.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">With ~2.5 tCO\u2082e\/ha reduced per crop, farmers can earn ~$37.5\/ha\u2014about \u20b93,367 per hectare (\u20b91,363 per acre) per crop.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">With India the world\u2019s largest rice producer and exporter, AWD-linked carbon markets present a scalable, farmer-friendly pathway to raise incomes while cutting emissions\u2014an opportunity whose time has arrived.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Source:<\/b><strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/indianexpress.com\/article\/explained\/explained-economics\/methane-emission-reductions-farmers-climate-change-rice-carbon-credits-10443685\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">IE<\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/iref.net\/news\/rice-farmers-turn-methane-emissions-into-carbon-credits\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">IREF<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Rice farmers can boost incomes by cutting methane emissions through Alternate Wetting and Drying (AWD) and earning carbon credits without affecting yields.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":80734,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[4525,60,22,59],"class_list":{"0":"post-80722","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-mains-current-affairs","8":"tag-awd","9":"tag-mains-articles","10":"tag-upsc-current-affairs","11":"tag-upsc-mains-current-affairs","12":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80722","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80722"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80722\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/80734"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80722"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80722"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80722"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}