Mitti Labs: Supporting Climate Smart Rice Farming Across India

Audit Analysis

This Gold Standard PoA project for methane reduction in Indian rice cultivation is at the validation stage with a VVB-confirmed combined additionality test and a measured project-specific baseline. However, leakage treatment is entirely absent, no buffer pool is specified, and 19 corrective actions plus multiple forward-looking requirements remain open, indicating the project's design is not yet fully robust. The lack of any monitoring data, combined with the PoA structure requiring per-VPA validation, means the integrity of future credit claims remains untested.

Project Description

Red Flags

• ⚠No leakage deduction or justification is stated anywhere in the available documents, despite rice water-management changes potentially shifting methane emissions to adjacent fields or altering downstream hydrology.
• ⚠19 corrective actions and multiple forward-looking requirements (FARs) remain open in the validation report, including missing double-counting prevention steps, undefined project boundary, and absent additionality justification at the PoA level.
• ⚠The PDD (2023) and validation report (2026) contradict each other on the additionality test type, grievance mechanism presence, and whether the baseline is measured or modeled, indicating the project design has shifted significantly between submissions.

Credit Vintages