Carbon trading scheme offers tree farmers from Kisumu economic lifeline
Maurice Odhiambo Kwadha inspects trees in his farm in Kisumu. He is among farmers selected in Africa to benefit from carbon credit trade. Photo/Tom Otieno
To many farmers in Kenya, the just concluded United Nations climate change conference in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil may have passed unnoticed or made little sense to them.
But to one farmer in Kisumu, the Rio summit meant a lot because he is already reaping the benefits of sustainable development that formed a key theme at the conference.
Maurice Kwadha has turned his 0.6 acre piece of land into a ‘gold mine’ that pays all his bills and sustains his family. He earns more than Sh40,000 a month from the sale of tree seedlings and vegetables he grows on this tiny parcel of land.
“From my one acre farm, I am able to get income and provide a balanced diet for my family. Initially, I used to go to the lake to look for fish which has become very rare because of the high number of fishermen and the water hyacinth,’’ he says.
Apart from the direct sale of the tree seedlings and crops grown on this parcel, Mr Kwadha will soon be paid for tackling carbon pollution through smart agricultural practices which have at the same time maximised the yields.
Mr Kwadha is among East African farmers that have been picked as new beneficiaries of a special UN carbon trading scheme that is targeted at promoting environmental protection through sustainable practices.
The scheme is based on principles of the Kyoto Protocol—the international agreement on climate change that enables less industrialised states that contribute less to the overall pollution of the earth to trade their carbon credits with heavily polluting industrialised states.
In this market, carbon is given an economic value that allows people, companies and nations to trade in it just as they buy and sell securities or commodities.
This means a farmer’s earnings will depend on the area under crop since each plant is considered to absorb certain amounts of harmful carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, thereby reducing its harmful effect on the climate.
The carbon market attaches value to the estimated carbon that a crop such as the maize plant can absorb and offers this for trade in the global market.
In the market, a nation that buys carbon has the right to burn it while the seller forfeits its right to do so.
Before venturing into planting tree seedlings for sale, Mr Kwadha’s farm was bare and barren. Two years down the line, the farm has no space left with green foliage covering every bit of it. When he harvests maize and beans, he plants other crops but having a cover crop is mandatory to him.
His farm has maize, beans, cassava, groundnuts, sweet potatoes, napier grass, cow peas, passion fruits and several other crops that do well in the region.
What gives him the biggest revenue are the tree seedlings he has planted in every space available. The tree shades in his compound are covered with seedlings of all types of trees, which waste no space.
To cut costs, he plants the seedlings in improvised polythene sheaths, filled with soil dug out of a water harvesting pond just in front of his house.
“I dug the pond so that when it rains, it can keep the water which I can use for watering my plants in dry seasons and also for irrigating my small seedlings. I also keeps fish ,” he says.
To conserve the water from evaporation, he has planted floating water lilies that have completely covered the pool. Apart from the tens of crops he has in his piece of land, he rears a cow, two goats and several chicken, which he says, apart from providing him with eggs, milk and money, gives him manure for his farm.
He does business in a different kind of way. His business involves selling seedlings to farmers after teaching them on the benefits of agroforestry on their farms.
“I sell most of my seedlings to farmers and some to local NGOs who are promoting the planting of trees as a measure to mitigate climate change,” Mr Kwadha says.
“Sometimes, I sell up to 3,000 seedlings and earn even up to Sh40,000.”
Mr Kwadha has planted over 20 species of trees and is teaching other farmers how to do business by practising agriculture that averts climate change and earns maximum benefits.
This has won him recognition and his fortunes are getting brighter.
He also benefited from a fund by the World Bank in 2011, implemented through the Bio-Carbon Fund, which entered into an agreement dubbed the Emission Reduction Purchase Agreement (ERPA) that seeks to purchase the carbon credits which the project generates.
This year, the World Bank will pay a total of Sh28 million to farmers under the Emission Reduction Purchase Agreement, signed at The Hague in Netherlands.
In the setup, the amount carbon emitted to the atmosphere by plants and animals is measured before the method is applied through tree planting and other eco-friendly practices.
After the practices have been applied, the reduction in the emission is established in what is called a Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). A CDM project must provide emission reductions that are compared to what would have otherwise occurred.
The project can earn certified emission reduction credits, each equivalent to one tonne of carbon dioxide, which are then calculated and paid for.
The CDM project which seeks to avert climate change effected by carbon emitted especially through agricultural and industrial practices was discussed at the Kyoto meeting on climate change.
In Nyanza, 7,000 farmers are being educated by the Swedish Cooperative Centre (SCC Vi Agroforestry) in Madiany, Kombewa and Wangai, to adopt the smart land management practices, while preparing to start earning income from carbon credits, expected to be implemented later this year.
These farmers, together with others in Kitale, will be among the first group in Africa to earn revenue through carbon credits, when the plan is implemented.
SCC Vi-Agroforestry Kisumu project manager Wilson Nyariwo says that so far the organisation has trained 15,000 farmers in Western and Nyanza provinces.
He said that payment for the carbon credits shall be made after verification of amount of carbon seized by the farmers through sustainable agriculture practices, and when a market for their carbon has been identified.
Mr Kwadha is optimistic that after the completion of the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil (Dubbed Rio +20), more governmental and non-governmental organisations will be more focused on ways of encouraging farmers to engage in climate-friendly farming practices that will in turn give them more revenue.
KenGen expects to realise about Sh300 million from the first tranche of carbon credit sales arising from the development of its geothermal Olkaria II Unit 3 that generates 35 megawatts (MW) of electricity.
Mumias Sugar Company in its part has signed a 10-year agreement with Japan Finance Corporation to sell carbon credit from its power generation activities that are carried out under the clean development mechanism (CDM) using bagasse.
Bagasse is a fibrous by-product of sugar cane crushing that is used fire the boilers to generate electricity. The company is expected to realise an annual displacement of 100,000 tonnes of carbon to be factored in the trading formula.
Two other Kenyan companies in March 2010 won grants from a new UN-backed facility that aims to boost the African carbon market through environmentally friendly projects.
Lake Turkana Wind Power Limited (LTWP) and Athi River Mining are among beneficiaries of the African Carbon Asset Development facility (ACAD) that has been set up as collaboration between the United Nations Environment Programme (Unep), Standard Bank and the German government’s International Climate Initiative.
The ACAD will support African carbon projects through a combination of technical assistance, grants and preferential access to corporate finance and transactional guidance.
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