REGENERATIVE AGRICULTURE IN RICE-WHEAT-MAIZE SYSTEM FOR INCOME GENERATION

Audit Analysis

A VCS-registered regenerative agriculture project in India (rice-wheat-maize, 684 acres, 38 farmers) with a verified combined additionality test, a 7.88% buffer pool, and no reported reversal events. However, the verified ERR for the first monitoring period (57,463 tCO₂e) represents only about 0.4% of the pro-rata lifetime ex-ante expectation, a gap the VVB flagged as a material finding attributed to lower-than-expected project area and COVID-19 disruptions. Several key MRV parameters (FNRB method, usage monitoring, CORSIA/CCP status) are absent from the extracted record, and two corrective actions remain open.

Project Description

Red Flags

• ⚠Verified ERR of 57,463 tCO₂e is only ~0.4% of the pro-rata ex-ante expectation (~13.1 million tCO₂e for the 3-year monitoring window out of a 20-year crediting period), a gap the VVB flagged as a material finding
• ⚠Two corrective actions remain open: updating the monitoring plan for SOC stocks in fields transitioning back from DSR to TPR, and checking the remote-sensing model algorithm for temporal-scale variability
• ⚠Buffer pool percentage contradicts between the PDD (13%) and the monitoring report (7.88%), creating uncertainty about the actual permanence safeguard applied
• ⚠Leakage treatment is inconsistent: the PDD describes leakage as 'quantified' while the monitoring report records it as 'deemed negligible' with a 0% deduction

Credit Vintages