India's First Soil Carbon Payments Disbursed to 2,550 Farmers in Punjab and Haryana

Key facts

• India's first soil-carbon payments were made to over 2,500 farmers in Punjab and Haryana, with more than Rs 2.9 crore disbursed for adopting regenerative farming practices.
• The first payments were released at Punjab Agricultural University (PAU), Ludhiana, where ICAR Director General M L Jat initiated direct benefit transfers to farmers.
• The payments are part of 'Aadi', a Grow Indigo farmer-carbon programme launched in 2019 with technical guidance from ICAR, under which farmers adopted direct-seeded rice (DSR), reduced tillage and crop-residue management between 2019 and 2022.
• Aadi is the first flagship farmer-carbon programme in India to issue agricultural carbon credits under the Verra VM0042 methodology, covering more than 2 million acres and over one lakh farmers across seven states.
• Participating fields during 2019-22 saved an estimated 45 billion litres of water, kept over 2 lakh tonnes of crop residue out of fires, and avoided about 1,000 tonnes of PM2.5 emissions.
• The first carbon credit issuance covered around 30,000 acres and more than 50,000 credits, with farmers receiving approximately Rs 3,000 to Rs 15,000.
• Farm-fire incidents in Punjab declined from more than 83,000 in 2020 to fewer than 5,000 in 2025, and Ransinh Kalan village in Moga avoided residue burning across 1,310 acres for six consecutive years.