Google has signed a five-year agreement with Indian climate tech firm Mitti Labs to purchase one million carbon credits by 2030. The initiative targets smallholder rice farms across 100,000 hectares in India, marking the largest off-take deal to date for carbon credits generated through rice-methane reduction.

The primary challenge in agricultural decarbonization stems from the high volume of methane generated by continuously flooded rice paddies, alongside massive agricultural water consumption. Conventional flooded cultivation creates anaerobic conditions in soil, driving significant greenhouse gas emissions while draining regional water resources. To address this issue, Mitti Labs is deploying Alternate Wetting and Drying (AWD) practices across more than 70,000 smallholder farms. To verify and scale these field operations, Mitti Labs uses a proprietary GeoAI platform that pairs satellite radar imagery with field-level data to track soil moisture, flooding periods, and crop health across target regions.

The implemented intervention reduces methane emissions by approximately 50 percent and lowers irrigation water usage by nearly 40 percent without compromising crop yields. Over the course of the agreement, the project is expected to deliver three million tons of near-term climate impact reduction measured under a 20-year global warming potential metric, conserve an estimated 1.5 trillion liters of water, and expand climate-resilient water management practices across smallholder agricultural landscapes in India.