The credits will come from climate-smart rice farming projects across India, including Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Karnataka. Mitti Labs works with farmers to adopt Alternate Wetting Drying (AWD), a method that periodically drains rice fields instead of keeping them continuously flooded. This reduces the oxygen-poor conditions that generate methane while also lowering irrigation demand.
The Google partnership is expected to help extend these practices across roughly 100,000 hectares of rice farmland and reach tens of thousands of smallholder farmers. Google estimates the initiative could conserve billions of gallons of water while maintaining crop productivity. Participating farming communities also receive a share of the revenue generated from verified carbon credits.
Technology is central to verifying those reductions. Mitti Labs uses its GeoAI platform, combining satellite-based synthetic aperture radar, remote sensing, field measurements and biogeochemical models to monitor flooding, water consumption and greenhouse-gas impact. The company says its satellite-based verification capabilities have also received support through a NASA grant.
The deal follows Mitti Labs’ recent $9.5 million Series A and gives the startup a large long-term buyer as it expands across India and Southeast Asia. More importantly, it turns methane reduction in rice farming into a potentially scalable commercial model — one where lower emissions, water savings and additional farmer income are tied to independently verified outcomes.
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