Carbon farming in rural China

More than 700 million Chinese citizens live in rural areas, and China faces as many environmental challenges in poor rural areas as it does in its fast-growing cities.

EDF launched its Carbon Farmers Program in 2005. EDF designs projects that lower carbon emissions by improving farm efficiency. The program aims to break the strong links between poverty, environmental degradation and climate change.

How is carbon “farmed”?

There are a variety of ways to "farm carbon." All involve techniques to improve farm efficiency and to prevent the release of greenhouse gases which are normally produced during agricultural operations. The most common techniques are:

• Reduced tillage. Low-till agriculture uses less fuel and stores more carbon in the soil.


• Biogas. Biogas "digesters" produce methane by trapping and fermenting agricultural solid wastes and residues. It can then be used as a household fuel or for electricity generation. Using biogas can directly reduce fossil fuel use - and using the residues left after biogas production as fertilizer reduces the need for fossil fuel-based fertilizer.


• Drip irrigation. Irrigation tubes are applied under a mulch film to supply water, fertilizer and pesticides directly to plants' roots. This technique reduces the use of water and improves the efficiency of fertilizer.


• Afforestation. Planting native trees and shrubs in cleared areas traps carbon and stores it as new biomass. These plantings also prevent soil erosion and desertification.

Instead of telling farmers what to do, EDF supports them in designing their own projects to lower carbon emissions and improve farm efficiency. We then help local organizations measure the reductions in the carbon emissions the farmers produce - and these reductions are then bundled for sale on the carbon market.

Where, and why, is carbon farmed in China?

EDF's Carbon Farming Program is centered in Xinhiang, Sichuan and Shaanxi provinces in Western China. This is a predominantly agricultural region where economic development lags behind that of the rest of the country. In our work, we often encounter very poor families who lack access to basics like electricity.

In Xinhiang province, 70 percent of the population is rural and 20 million people live on less than $1,000 per year. More than a quarter of economic activity comes from agriculture - the province is famous for its farm products - and that makes Xinhiang an ideal location for innovative carbon farming techniques.

And yet EDF's Carbon Farming Program reaches only a small fraction of China's rural poor. China is working hard to create opportunities and raise living standards for 135 million rural peasants who still live below the international poverty line.

Farmers can benefit from carbon farming in three ways:

• cost savings from reduced inputs;
• additional cash income from the sale of carbon emissions reductions; and
• more resilient production, which helps adapt to shifting seasonal patterns, desertification and other creeping effects of climate change.

What has carbon farming accomplished?

EDF likes to measure progress whenever possible. So what have our Western China carbon farming partners achieved so far? More cash in farmers' pockets and more carbon in the soil.

• More than 300,000 tons of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions reductions from Xinjiang and Sichuan provinces sold on the carbon market.


• 5,000 farms covering 17,000 acres in Xinjiang province participating and producing about 9,000 tons of carbon emission equivalents per year.


• New revenue for farmers selling carbon reductions and more savings for farmers improving agricultural efficiency.


• Healthier homes for because using biogas for cooking reduces indoor air pollution.

What's next?

EDF's long-term goal for the Carbon Farmers Program is to establish a self-sustaining market for greenhouse reductions from rural agricultural areas in China by:

• Developing and implementing more agricultural projects producing quantifiable emissions reductions


• Linking verified agricultural emission reductions to a national greenhouse gas registry


• Establishing a transaction fund to support new projects

More Carbon Farming Material

The China Carbon Farming Program has been so successful that EDF decided to capture the lessons learned in a pioneering 2007 book, Harnessing Farms and Forests in the Low Carbon Economy.

A Chinese-language version was published in 2009.