South American Regenerative Agriculture through Regenerative Grazing (SARA) - AgriCarbon

Audit Analysis

The SARA regenerative grazing project in Paraguay has VVB-confirmed additionality and a 13% buffer pool, but is undermined by a project-specific modeled baseline, a reversal risk that the most recent verification report does not address, and a 283-fold discrepancy between the PDD's lifetime carbon estimate and the verified monitoring-period figure. The project is delivering far below its original PDD expectations, which is conservative but raises questions about baseline accuracy and documentation consistency across the seven identified contradictions.

Project Description

Red Flags

• ⚠The most recent verification report (Feb 2026) states reversal events are 'not addressed,' while the earlier report (Jul 2025) reported 'none reported' — the absence of an explicit reversal assessment in the latest cycle is a gap for a soil-carbon project with a 50-year crediting period.
• ⚠The PDD's lifetime carbon estimate of ~59.1 million tCO2e is roughly 283× the verified monitoring-period figure of ~209,224 tCO2e; even on a pro-rata basis the project delivered only ~4.7% of the expected amount, suggesting the PDD baseline assumptions were substantially overstated.
• ⚠FPIC status is contradictory: the validation report (May 2025) records it as not conducted, while the verification report (Jul 2025) records it as conducted — this discrepancy is unresolved in the extracted record.
• ⚠CCP eligibility is contradictory: the PDD does not mention CCP status, while a later appendix (Feb 2026) lists the project as 'eligible,' creating uncertainty about dual-channel risk.

Credit Vintages