Agricultural carbon credit markets course

INTRODUCTION

Both livestock and crops farmers receive the lowest gross margin across the value chains. This is because of lack of access to markets, high costs of inputs as well as implements, high labour costs and selling their produce in raw forms without adding value. The situation is worsened by the effects of climate change, leading to low income in farming enterprise and lose of livelihoods.  Interventions that may lead to increasing farmers’ income and improving their sustainability are therefore essential in boosting any farming business. One of these interventions is selling of carbon credit, which can generate additional income to farmers and at the same time improve their sustainability as a result of farmers adopting climate smart technologies at their farms. Agricultural carbon markets exist through privately and publicly owned companies with an objective to lessen carbon emissions through trade of carbon units sequestered at the farm level. This 5-days training aims to equip the participants with the knowledge on carbon credit business in order to support sustainable livelihoods and economically empower farmers.

Target Participants

This course targets participants working in rural development and agriculture projects, government institutions, NGO staff, private and research institutions.

Duration

5 Days

Course objectives

By the end of this training the participants will learn:

• What carbon credit business entails
• Explore markets for carbon credit
• Approaches that are there for entering a carbon marketplace
• How to register in carbon credit market
• How to develop technical documents

Course Outline

Module 1: Introduction to carbon credit markets

• Introduction to carbon credit markets
• Voluntary carbon credit markets
• Red plus markets
• What approaches are there for entering a carbon marketplace?
• Using an aggregator
• Through data manager
• Voluntary climate change agreements
• UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (1992)
• Kyoto Protocol (1997)
• Paris Agreement (2015)

Module 2: Carbon sequestration

• Main types of carbon sequestration: geologic and biologic
• Climate-friendly strategies to pull carbon dioxide into the soil and capture emissions
• Determining the amount of carbon credits that can be produced by each farmer
• How to register for carbon credit selling

Module 3: Preparation of necessary documents

• Proposal development
• Preparation of technical documents
• Participatory rural appraisal
• Where and how to engage farmers
• About share certificates

Module 4: Carbon sequestration practices and breakeven prices

• About Payment of Ecosystem (PES) agreement
• Project designs
• Exploring Agroforestry systems