Entoprises and eAgronom partner to incentivise sustainable farming in South Africa

South African farmers facing steep costs to switch to regenerative farming systems will soon be able to receive pre-payments for future carbon credits.

This will accelerate adoption of sustainable, regenerative farming practices, whilst helping to climate-proof farms, improve food security and promote biodiversity.

Key to reducing emissions lies in introducing climate-smart agriculture.

Incentivising farmers to change their practices – which have served them well for decades – is a major challenge.

Therefore, South African carbon project developer and climate solutions provider Entoprises and European Agtech company eAgronom are partnering to accelerate the uptake of climate-smart farming across South Africa and beyond.

The collaboration will create an additional income stream for South African farmers for high quality certified carbon credits that their projects generate, allowing them to support immediate climate action in the global race towards net zero.

Moving towards sustainable agriculture typically requires upfront investments and changes in the agriculture production systems.

These are all major barriers for many farmers who wish to transition to sustainable farming systems. Access to financing and agronomical support is key to making this transition happen.

eAgronom’s novel carbon programme ensures farmers receive agronomical support and get rewarded for the regenerative practices they will introduce.

Under today’s leading carbon credit standards, it can take years to receive payments for the carbon credits that climate-smart projects generate, a repayment period that is too long for most farmers.

eAgronom’s carbon credit pre-payment mechanism removes this entry barrier and allows farmers to join the efforts towards net zero today whilst feeding the world and protecting critical habitats.

“Farmers are fighting at the front line of the climate change battle. They need the financial security and capital to future-proof their farms to ensure they can continue to deliver food supplies to the community and protect their livelihoods. Together with Entoprises, we will be able to offer South African farmers a complete solution from financing, consultancy, implementation, accreditation, measurement and verification so that every farmer will soon be a climate smart farmer”, Robin Saluoks, CEO of eAgronom.

Mzamo Mjoli, co-founder of Entoprises, said: “Carbon credits from climate smart agricultural projects provide not only a reduction of emissions but also many social and environmental benefits, which are key at a time when our food system is facing unprecedented challenges. We look forward to spearheading a program that drives funds from the voluntary carbon market to hundreds of farmers. These offsets also get the private sector to take climate action today, while they are working on their long term decarbonisation strategies.”

The programme will generate verifiable, transparent and robust carbon credits for which farmers can be prepaid in order to support the adoption of sustainable practices such as cover cropping and reducing tillage.In this partnership, Entoprises will manage the farmer engagement and support by leveraging its local presence in South Africa, while eAgronom focuses on technology, credit certification, buyer engagement and sales.eAgronom is the only Central and Eastern European organisation to commence a project pursuing certification by the prestigious Verified Carbon Standard Verra and is already paying farmers for the generated carbon credits.

The project thus far includes 200 farms with 100.000 hectares of cropland that is expected to generate annual carbon benefits of between 0.5 – 1.5 t CO2-e per ha through an increase in soil organic carbon, while reducing emissions (N2O; CO2, CH4) and input costs related to fertilisers and fossil fuel use.Access to carbon finance is not only beneficial to farmers and the agricultural sector and helps the uptake and acceleration of low carbon farming practices in an industry that is responsible for 17% of global carbon emissions.High quality carbon credits are also a powerful tool for companies to take action and ownership of their unavoidable emissions today, while they are working on a science-led decarbonisation journey towards net zero.By purchasing carbon credits, a company is putting a price on their carbon footprint.

This makes carbon credits an effective decision-making tool for financing and accelerating climate action.