More Than Just Hot Air: Carbon Market Access and Climate-Smart Agriculture for Smallholder Farmers

The Kenya agricultural carbon project is breaking new ground in designing and implementing climate finance projects in the agricultural sector. The project is regarded as an innovative example for climate-smart agriculture within and outside the World Bank. For the first time, while increasing productivity and enhancing resilience to climate change, smallholder farmers in Africa will receive payments for greenhouse gas mitigation based on sustainable agricultural land management. Quantification of carbon sequestration is monitored based on a newly developed carbon accounting methodology. This smart lesson describes the key factors to take into consideration when facilitating the adoption of climate-smart agricultural practices and access to carbon markets for smallholder farmers.