Mumbai

Bayer, a global enterprise with core competencies in the life science fields of agriculture and healthcare, in collaboration with GenZero, a Temasek-owned investment platform company dedicated to accelerating decarbonization globally, Shell Energy India Private Limited, a subsidiary of Shell Plc and investor in nature-based solutions, and other experts, is pleased to announce their efforts to develop a robust model to showcase the scalability of methane emissions reduction in rice cultivation. The proposed approach will include training, support, and guidance for smallholder farmers while utilizing Measurement, Reporting & Verification (MRV) mechanisms incorporating remote sensing technology. The project aims to set a benchmark for similar efforts in the rice decarbonization space.

Paddy rice cultivation is responsible for approximately 10% of global methane emissions1, a potent greenhouse gas with a global warming potential over 27 times that of carbon dioxide. Rice farms occupy 15% of global farm area, equivalent to more than 150 million hectares worldwide2. It also consumes around one-third of the global fresh water3. To address the challenges of climate change and limit global temperature rise, a significant and scalable effort is required to promote methane emissions reductions in rice cultivation.

Bayer over the last two years has already done the necessary groundwork and initiated a pilot Sustainable Rice Project across India. It started with an aim to generate carbon reductions by encouraging rice farmers to switch from the current practice of transplanting with continuously flooding fields to Alternate Wetting and Drying (AWD) that involves controlled and intermittent flooding and Direct Seeded Rice (DSR) that involves no transplanting operations and very limited flooding.