Bagepalli CDM Reforestation Programme

Climate Change has a significant impact on agricultural activities in semi-arid drought prone regions. With scanty, erratic and spatial rainfall, field crops fail. From the mid 1990’s we suggested that Member Coolie families plant fruit and fodder trees on their scattered rain fed holdings and switch from risky, rainfall dependent field crops, to more hardy tree crops that do not need timely rains.

For 11 years, from 1996 to 2007, they put aside small patches of their land to plant tamarind and mango saplings. Except for technical assistance to procure good saplings, ADATS did not have the money to help with anything material. Project implementation was self-financed by 1,296 participating farmer families from 155 villages. With their own resources, they planted a total of 74,254 saplings, but the survival rate was very poor at 26%.

Growing farmer friendly fruit, fodder, fuel and manure trees on parched lands was a painstaking and challenging task that Coolie Sangha families took up with passion and enthusiasm. During the September rains every year, they dug 1 cubic metre pits and filled them with sand, red earth and manure. They planted Mango, Cashew, Silver Oak, Tamarind, Jamun and other saplings of their choice, and tied thorny branches to protect against grazing. Every year they replaced saplings that had died in the summer heat and undertook fresh planting.

Alf Bjørseth, a private philanthropist from Norway, supplemented their effort with grants totalling ₹ 72 lakh from 2007-2010.

They installed 280 pre-fabricated tanks on their fields and hired bullock carts to haul water from ponds. Each sapling was hand watered with two buckets of water, twice a week, for 5-7 summer months every year. TNO, a research institute from the Netherlands, assisted with an experiment to place Rockwool slabs under the saplings, at the time of planting, to retain the hand poured water for a few extra days.

But whatever they did, more than half the planted saplings died every year due to the scorching heat and uncontrolled grazing. Many families gave up; new persons came forward. In the ten-year period from 2008 to 2017, a staggering total of 616,474 saplings were planted. Only 56,377 (9%) survived.

Transition to Gold Standard

In 2015, we decided to transition the project to Gold Standard. Click here to access key project documents at the GS MARKIT Registry website.

We then compiled the year-wise data of only those who had succeeded in raising at least a few saplings into full grown trees to include in this latest avatar of the Afforestation Project which we re-christened "Farm Forestry".

 Annual Planting and Survival

Planting Year	Saplings Planted in the Year	Survived as on Today	Age (months)	Survival Rate
1996	820	477	290	58%
1997	1,239	530	278	43%
1998	3,986	1,459	266	37%
1999	1,217	417	253	34%
2000	813	591	242	73%
2001	377	146	229	39%
2002	10,003	6,282	220	63%
2003	2,395	1,947	208	81%
2004	3,750	2,478	194	66%
2005	3,476	2,264	184	65%
2006	3,513	1,858	171	53%
2007	2,225	1,272	159	57%
2008	40,039	13,010	146	32%
2009	41,651	8,989	132	22%
2010	10,336	4,159	123	40%
2011	7,653	3,341	111	44%
2012	5,658	2,253	98	40%
2013	2,795	547	85	20%
2014	1,010	552	74	55%
2015	340	170	58	50%
2016	649	582	50	90%
2018	40	-	-	-
2019	45,361	43,805	11	97%
2020	38,072	38,072	0	100%
	2,27,418	1,35,201		59%

Verification & Issuance

After re-registering, the project underwent the first Verification. 26,350 GS VERs were issued to 509 farmers from 134 villages who planted on 1,710 acres in the early years. Click here to download a .kml file and view each planted plot on Google Earth.

The next verification in 2020 will be for about 20,000 tCO₂. But 2016-2020 will be too small a time span to measure any serious sequestration on recently planted discrete plots 2019 and 2020. They will have to wait for at least another 5 years.

Carbon Revenue

ADATS negotiated with potential buyers and got the best possible price in the voluntary market.

• In December 2017 we sold 3,000 tonnes to NUMERCO, London
• In December 2018 NUMERCO once again bought another 1,810 tonnes
• In February 2019 FairClimateFund, the Netherlands, bought 972 tonnes
• In October 2019 Primaklima, Germany, bought the remaining 20,563 tonnes

The below table shows the vintage years of issued VERs:

The entire ₹ 1.78 crore received as carbon revenue was given to 509 farmer families as a reward for the environmental service they have provided through their heroic battle against Climate Change.

Strategic Plan

ADATS realises that grit and determination alone are not enough. Own efforts would go so far and no further. Small and poor peasant families do not have the financial resources for capex and also to tide over unpredictable weather variances.

After critically analysing our 25 year long experience, we adopted a 5 year strategic plan in September 2019 in order to scale-up proven and demonstrated climate resilient alternatives to subsistence cultivation using farm forestry that sequesters GHG and provides livelihood opportunities to local communities, as an altered land-use practice, and integrating small and poor peasant families into the climate friendly new-age economy of tomorrow.

• 750 more families would grow 90,000 trees on 1,500 acres of rain-fed holdings, sequester GHG, get sustained income from tree-produce and earn carbon revenue.
• Of the total project cost of ₹ 6.18 crore, 9% will be mobilised from MG-NREGA and ADATS will assist the Coolie Sangha source external funding to the tune of ₹ 5.64 crore.
• Returns from carbon revenue of 22,800 tCO_2-e in the 5th year and 28,500 tCO_2-e in the 10th year, along with income from tree produce is projected at ₹ 11.56 crore.

After seeing the flow of carbon revenue at the end of a 25 year long struggle, many families decided not to wait till funding was obtained.

• 250 farmers planted 45,361 saplings on about 500 acres in 2019
• Yet another 38,072 saplings have been planted in 2020

Please see Strategic Plan - Farm Forestry.

Case Studies

• 838 016 Muninarayanappa
• 838 012 Honnamma
• 605 050 Laxmamma
• 605 012 Narayanappa
• 827 024 Sarojamma