How The Good Rice Alliance is driving sustainable farming practices among paddy farmers
For the fifth consecutive kharif cropping season, A Vijay Kumar from Dhulehole village in Harihar taluk of Central Karnataka, has managed to reduce the amount of water used for growing paddy.
Since joining The Good Rice Alliance’s (TGRA) Carbon Farming Programme in Kharif 2023, Kumar has transformed his paddy cultivation practices, shifting from the traditional puddled transplanted rice (PTR) method to the alternate wetting and drying (AWD) technique.
Unlike conventional rice farming, where fields remain continuously flooded for most of the season, the AWD method requires irrigation only when the water level in a perforated pipe placed in the field drops below a set threshold. This simple but effective monitoring helps prevent over irrigation thereby improving water use efficiency for paddy, traditionally a water intensive crop.
“Practising AWD has helped reduce my water use by about 30–35 per cent,” says Kumar, who has been cultivating paddy for over 25 years using water drawn from the nearby Tungabhadra river. Kumar’s experience reflects a quiet but growing transformation across parts of Central Karnataka, where farmers part of TGRA’s Carbon Farming Project are learning that sustainability can go hand-in-hand with productivity.
Farmer Vijay Kumar trying out the direct seeded paddy seeder at a demo plot in Bilisanur, Karnataka
Rewarding transition
TGRA, floated by agri major Bayer, in collaboration with GenZero, a Temasek-owned investment platform dedicated to accelerating decarbonisation globally and Shell Energy India Private Ltd, is focussing on reducing green house gas emissions, by promoting sustainable agricultural practices such as AWD and direct seeded rice (DSR) in paddy cultivation.
“We are using less water, spending less on fertilisers, and still getting better yields,” says Kumar, who grows the fine paddy variety RNR, with satisfaction. The transition has been both economically and environmentally rewarding. The reduced water use helps prevent emissions of gases like methane, which are harmful, he adds. Methane emissions arise largely from the traditional PTR due to the anaerobic composition of the organic matter as paddy fields remain submerged under water for long periods.
So is the case with Mugappa Naduvinamani, is a progressive farmer, growing paddy in the neighbouring Ranebennur taluk. After being part of TGRA’s carbon farming project project, Mugappa says has seen an average increase of around 200 kgs in production of paddy per hectare, practising the AWD method of paddy cultivation.
Cutting costs
Mugappa and Kumar are among over 2000 farmers in the region who have started practising AWD. They are constantly guided by the field officers from the Davangere-based Eco Agripreneurs, which is helping TGRA implement the carbon farming project in some 6595 hectares across 58 villages in Karnataka’s four districts of Davangere, Haveri, Vijaynagar and Gadag.
Paddy is among the most water-intensive crops in India, typically requiring around 3,000–5,000 litres of water to produce one kilogram of rice.
“Farmers have gained considerably through improved yields and seen reduction in costs due to the need based application of inputs, be it fertiliser or agrochemical sprays, based on the recommendation of our field officers,” says Narayanagouda Malkaji, co-founder of Eco Agripreneurs.
Farmers preparing the farm for transplanting paddy under the traditional puddled transplantation cultivation method in Bilisanur village Karnataka
An incentive of ₹1000 per hectare per season is being provided for the farmers enrolled under the carbon farming project. Including the incentive, farmers gain by about ₹6,000-7000 per hectare over the traditional method, through reduced input costs and higher yields, Malkaji adds. Moreover, the regulated use of water has also led to a drastic decline of sheath blight, a fungal disease in paddy, he said.
New challenges
While the AWD technique brings clear water and input savings, Malkaji admits it also presents new challenges. “Weed growth is slightly higher since fields are not continuously flooded,” he said. “However, the economic and environmental gains outweigh the additional weeding cost.”
Kumar says that AWD has also helped farmers like him to overcome the challenge of lodging (falling or bending of standing plants) in paddy, which makes the harvest difficult. He further adds that many fellow farmers in and around his village have now become aware of the gains of the AWD technique and keep asking him how to join the project.
Suhas Joshi, India Carbon Initiative Lead at Bayer, said the primary objective of TGRA is to address the water and methane-intensive cultivation practices in rice farming, with an aim to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by implementing sustainable agricultural practices that minimise the anaerobic decomposition of organic matter.
Joshi said that carbon farming project which started as an internal pilot in very small area in 2021 has now been gradually scaled to over 55,000 hectares across the country this cropping season across 13 states. Besides Karnataka, TGRA is implementing the carbon farming projects in major rice producing states like Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Haryana, Odisha, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Assam, Uttarakhand, Jharkhand, and Maharashtra.
Payment for carbon
Besides water saving, farmers participating in carbon farming project stand to gain through improvements in soil and yields and reduced inputs. “In addition, we also pay ₹1,000 per hectare per season for farmers practising recommended practices. We do not expose the small holders farmers to the fluctuations in the carbon market,” Joshi adds.
“One important component of the project is the direct measurement of methane emission through chamber measurement, which is being done in co-operation with the International Rice Research Institute. This season we are doing this across 14 locations including Bilisanur in Karnataka, which would help us collect emission data for various practices in most of the agro-ecological zones of the country,” he said.
Joshi says the annual emission reductions from TGRA’s carbon farming project are estimated to be approximately around 1,20,000 tonnes of CO2 (carbon dioxide) equivalent this year. This will continue for the project crediting period, which is for 10 year till 2023-33.
“Total emission reductions from TGRA’s carbon farming project will be over 1 million tonnes of Co2 equivalent by 2032-33,” Joshi adds. TGRA, Joshi said is registering the carbon farming project with Gold Standard to earn carbon credits for the GHG emissions reduced through the project.
Expansion to continue
Recently, BeZero is an independent carbon ratings agency, gave an ‘Ae’ ex ante rating for TGRA’s carbon farming project. The ‘Ae’ rating reflects the project’s high standalone carbon rating (‘a’) combined with a very high likelihood of successful project execution (‘aa’).
A standalone Carbon ex ante of ‘a’ is comparable to the highest rated ex post Soil Carbon & Agriculture credits. Receiving an ‘Ae’, a top-quartile rating confirms a high likelihood that each TGRA credit will deliver one ton of CO2e avoidance.
Joshi said TGRA will continue to expand the project going forward promoting sustainable agricultural practices among the small holder Indian farmers helping them deal with climate change.
(The writer was recently in Davangere at the invitiation of Bayer)
Published on October 13, 2025
