Addressing climate change is a significant challenge, just ask companies focused on carbon removal like Mitti Labs. This startup based in New York has created technology to assess the methane emissions from rice paddies and utilizes this information to educate numerous farmers on climate-conscious methods. It’s the kind of hands-on approach that typically doesn’t attract venture capitalists.
So, what has allowed Mitti to secure funding from its backers? The answer lies in collaborations.
Mitti has initiated a partnership with The Nature Conservancy to advance regenerative, no-burn farming practices, which the startup shared exclusively with TechCrunch, marking yet another agreement that broadens its outreach. Mitti plans to leverage its AI Startup to quantify, document, and validate the efforts of the nonprofit’s personnel in India, where they assist farmers in adopting a range of climate-friendly techniques.
“Most of the project operations on the ground are from locals from the villages where these projects are being implemented,”
co-founder Xavier Laguarta mentioned to TechCrunch.
While Mitti’s primary focus is currently on creating projects aimed at lowering methane emissions from rice cultivation, the company is also looking to expand its software offerings to external clients, he stated.
“We can measure Scope 3 emissions from other project developers or corporations that are working with rice farmers,” Laguarta explained, referring to emissions that an entity does not directly manage. “Anyone who’s already running projects on the ground, that’s sort of like a SaaS solution that we can offer them.”
Mitti is not the only one pursuing this SaaS-partnership strategy. Mati Carbon, which recently secured the Xprize Carbon grand prize, produces software for measuring, reporting, and verifying enhanced rock weathering, a method where minerals applied to agricultural land both sequester carbon and enrich the soil.
Methane reduction projects generate carbon credits, which Mitti tracks through its software. The firm retains a portion of the sales of these credits and shares the rest with farmers and the community, he noted. “Usually, farmers will see about a 15% improvement in their bottom line by joining our programs.” For smallholder farmers, who frequently operate on the edge of financial viability, this additional revenue can be substantial.
Mitti’s software analyzes a variety of indicators from rice farms to gauge how much methane is emitted throughout the growing season. Rice cultivation is unique compared to many other agricultural practices, as the fields remain flooded for much of the year. This situation leads to anaerobic, or oxygen-deprived, soil conditions that allow a diverse range of microbes to thrive and produce methane.
Methane is an extremely potent greenhouse gas, trapping heat at a rate 82 times greater than the same volume of carbon dioxide over a span of 20 years. Rice farming represents a significant source of anthropocentric methane emissions, accounting for around 10% to 12% of the overall total.
Mitti primarily gathers data from satellite imagery and radar, which can see through clouds, vegetation, water, and soil to inspect what occurs below the surface where microbes reside. This data is then integrated into AI models that have been trained on satellite information and comprehensive field research.
Smallholder farmers play a crucial role in India’s agricultural landscape; the typical farm size is one hectare (approximately 2.5 acres). Monitoring each farm with physical tools would be prohibitively expensive. The use of remote sensing data helps keep verification costs manageable, and the partnerships facilitate the introduction of climate-friendly practices to millions of farmers.
“Ninety percent of rice is grown in Asia, and outside of potentially China, the majority of rice growing regions have these similar smallholder farmer dynamics,” Laguarta stated. “A deep partnership that we have with the Nature Conservancy allows us to develop these tools that can then be used for a lot of other programs in the region.”
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