Enabling smallholder farmers to access the global carbon markets
THE QUESTION
Can satellite imagery and GPS technology monitor the growth of trees on smallholder farms in Uganda whilst utilising a mobile application to enable farmers to sell carbon credits on the international market?
LOCATION: Uganda
SECTOR: Climate and Environment
TECH: Satellite Imagery, Mobile Tech
TIMELINE: December 2021 - March 2023
PIONEERS: Louie Dane, Alexandra Igel, Jordan Martindale, Gavin De Costa
PARTNERS: Taking Root & Ecotrust
The Challenge
Farming in Uganda is driving forest loss at a rate of 2.6% per year, which has led to 41% of the country’s land being significantly degraded. These losses are equivalent to 17% of Uganda’s GDP, which is a huge loss to the country’s economy. Currently, smallholder farms have no incentive to protect the land or grow new trees to support rehabilitation of the soil. While the international carbon market is thriving, these smallholder farmers have no way to access it. If farmers had access to this market, they would be incentivised to protect existing and grow new indigenous trees around their farms. The current way of monitoring tree growth is through in-person verification, which is costly and time consuming.
The Idea
This pilot will connect smallholder farmers in Uganda to the international carbon markets utilising satellite imagery, GPS technology and a mobile phone app. To mitigate the cost associated with in person verification of tree growth, satellite imagery and GPS technology will be used to enable remote monitoring of tree growth and certify the carbon credits to meet international standards. The mobile app will enable farmers and village agents to register trees' growth and facilitate the calculation of carbon credits that can be sold to the open market. Carbon credit payments will be directly paid to the farmer using text messaging services. If successful, this pilot will protect Ugandan land and provide additional investments to smallholder farmers to promote their livelihoods.
Read the findings from the pilot in the report below:
Read more
Learn about the pilot’s first sprint — Harnessing technology to make forest carbon markets work for Ugandan smallholder farmers
Read about the pilot’s considerations in working with smallholder farms — Considerations for mapping reforested land with smallholder farmers
Get the summary of the pilot - Pilot summary
Read the overall final pilot report here - Pilot report