India’s Telangana state is looking to introduce blockchain-based solutions to make activities related to farming more eco-friendly. The aim is to help farmers in the state to participate in organic farming, agroforestry, crop rotation, and solar power harvesting — all of which support reduction in greenhouse gas emissions and carbon sequestration, which is the process of capturing and storing atmospheric carbon dioxide to prevent excessive emissions. AlgoBharat, an India-centric initiative of the green Algorand blockchain, has joined Telangana in its eco-friendly Web3 initiative.
Telangana, that houses lakhs of farmers, wishes to make them carbon entrepreneurs with a better access to the carbon credits markets.
“By deploying blockchain-based traceability we will enable funding, provide infrastructure to monitor and record sustainable processes, generate credits according to recognised registries, and finally access markets for liquidation and fund realisation. Our solution with Algorand will automate and democratise the process so that even our farmers have access to the same opportunities as large corporations,” Jayesh Ranjan, Principal Secretary, Telangana state said in a prepared statement on Wednesday, April 19.
Carbon credits are permits for owners to emit a certain amount of carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gases without any legal consequence. One credit allows the emission of one ton of carbon dioxide or the equivalent in other greenhouse gases. A company can earn carbon credits by reducing its carbon footprint. These credits can then be sold or traded to other companies for a financial profit.
Carbon and other sustainable credits have historically required significant documentation and complexity to track with traditional methods. This makes the process unaffordable for many.
AlgoBharat, in a bid to make this process cost-effective for farmers, will be partnering with ecosystem companies building on Algorand to generate verifiable sustainable credits.
“Blockchain technology ensures transparency, traceability, and accountability in the generation of sustainable credits. Farmers, for example, will have the ability to record and verify their sustainable farming practices on the blockchain. They will be empowered to generate verifiable credits that can be traded on carbon markets, creating new revenue streams for the farmers and other populations whose livelihoods are critical to Bharat’s robust economy,” said AlgoBharat.
Released in 2019, Algorand is a green, proof-of-stake (PoS) blockchain. The developers of the blockchain claim to enable the convergence between decentralised finance (DeFi) and traditional finance.
In December 2022, the government of Maharashtra had teamed-up with the Algorand blockchain and health tech firm MAPay to store health data as NFTs.
Earlier this month, the Algorand Foundation launched its India-focussed initiative called ‘AlgoBharat’.
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