Reference
Agri-carbon glossary
Plain-English definitions of the terms that come up most in agriculture carbon credits — for farmers, FPOs and the businesses building programmes.
- Voluntary Carbon Market (VCM)
- The market where companies buy carbon credits voluntarily (not because a law requires it) to offset or inset emissions. Most Indian agriculture carbon credits today are sold in the voluntary market, which is operational now.
- Measurement, Reporting & Verification (MRV)
- The process of measuring a project’s carbon outcome, reporting it, and having it independently verified. Strong, increasingly digital MRV is what makes credits credible; weak MRV is the most common reason agri-carbon projects fail.
- Additionality
- The principle that a carbon project must deliver emission reductions or removals that would not have happened anyway. Credits are only valid if the climate benefit is additional to business-as-usual.
- Soil Organic Carbon (SOC)
- Carbon stored in soil as organic matter. Regenerative practices — reduced tillage, cover crops, residue retention — build soil organic carbon, which can be measured and converted into credits while improving soil health.
- Agroforestry
- Growing trees on farmland — as boundary plantations, alley cropping, silvopasture or orchards. Trees store carbon for decades, producing long-lived, high-integrity removal credits alongside fruit, fodder, timber and shade.
- Alternate Wetting and Drying (AWD)
- A paddy water-management practice that lets fields dry periodically instead of staying continuously flooded, cutting methane emissions by roughly 30–48% per season while saving water — typically without reducing yield when timed well.
- Direct-Seeded Rice (DSR)
- Sowing rice seed directly into the field instead of transplanting into flooded paddies. DSR reduces water use and methane emissions and can qualify for rice carbon-reduction credits.
- VM0042
- A Verra (VCS) methodology for “Improved Agricultural Land Management,” widely used for soil-carbon and farm-practice projects. India’s first soil-carbon issuance under VM0042 produced over 50,000 credits from around 30,000 acres.
- Farmer Producer Organisation (FPO)
- A collective of farmers, registered as a producer company or cooperative. FPOs are central to agri-carbon because aggregating many farms (typically 500–2,000 acres) shares the fixed cost of MRV and verification, making projects viable.
- Co-benefits
- Benefits beyond carbon — better soil health, water security, biodiversity, rural livelihoods. Credits with strong co-benefits are valued more highly by buyers.
- Permanence
- How durably carbon stays stored. If farmers revert to old practices (e.g. tilling soil or felling trees), stored carbon can be released — a “non-permanence” risk that projects must manage to keep credits valid.
- Benefit-sharing
- How carbon revenue is split between project costs, the developer/aggregator and farmers. Some aggregators take 20–50% commission; a credible programme is transparent about the split so a fair share reaches the farmer. Any earnings figures are estimates, not guarantees.
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