How can smallholder farmers participate and benefit from the growing carbon market?

[Elizabeth Kahurani]

Until recently, smallholders have been unable to take advantage of the world’s growing carbon market, which is based on organizations selling the carbon they capture – for example through tree-planting – to countries or companies which wish to offset their own emissions. The difficulty of producing the minimum volumes required by the trade, the cost of registering projects and measuring carbon stocks, a lack of business skills – these are among the factors which have prevented smallholders from tapping into the carbon market. Taking the heat out of farming is a new report by the by a WorldAgroforestry Center documents efforts by a project that is using practical activities to overcome these challenges through a SMART-CDM approach. Read more