Carbon Neutral Agriculture
Sri Lanka is looking for a way of meeting its energy needs whilst at the same time reducing carbon in the atmosphere. Gliricidia Sepium is now grown by our plantation partner as biomass and as an inter-planted crop on all their forestry plantations.
Our plantation partner is pioneering the development and establishment of crops in countries that currently have to import to meet demand. As well as meeting economic objectives, this will also have an important environmental impact on carbon emissions - a major cause of global warming. Harvesting, packaging and transportation all create carbon dioxide. In the USA, scientists have now started rating fruit, vegetables and other food products according to their carbon emissions. As the average product travels 1,600 kilometers to the retailer, many brands in America are now listing the carbon cost on their food products, prompting consumer awareness and providing shoppers with choice on carbon emission efficiency.
In this context, in Sri Lanka, where there is an annual shortfall in local maize production of around 225,000 tonnes, and potatoes of around 110,000 tonnes; the government has recognized that, by promoting domestic production of these crops, not only does it provide further employment but also reduces the need to import- and with that, the reduction carbon emissions created in the shipping process.
Our partner’s own interpolated plantations within their rainforest projects, help create local jobs and stimulate local crop production. The maize and potato plantations are therefore both commercially and environmentally beneficial, and create further ethical investment opportunities alongside their forestry projects. Our partners are also working in Malaysia, Cambodia, Thailand, India and Africa on similar projects, where their traditional forestry programmes run in parallel with permaculture agricultural projects, growing crops that are profitable, sustain local markets, and are carbon emission efficient.
The commercial advantage for our investors is that our partner only focuses on growing traditional and established crops with a global market pricing structure and thus, in turn offering sound agricultural investment opportunities.
The forestry plantations are being certified under the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDDS - Kyoto Agreement) as officially recognised reforestation and aforestation projects and will soon generate Carbon Credits.
Our partner’s commitment to the environment is underpinned by the growth of crops from carbon neutral agriculture, which help to satisfy the demands of the domestic market, thus reducing the C02 emissions that are a by-product of imports.
Our partner’s renewable energy projects will also generate Carbon Credits, because producing electricity sustainably saves costs in carbon and in monetary terms when compared to the production of electricity from traditional coal and gas fired thermal power stations.
