Quantum Commodity Intelligence – Japanese carbon project developer Faeger has agreed to utilise remote sensing technology tools developed by UK technology firm Mantle Labs to monitor its rice methane projects in Asia, the two companies said.

Faeger is one of the largest developers of “paddy-related J-credits” in Japan, being responsible for around half of all credits generated in the country to date, and is also working on a project in Vietnam that is expected to cover 350,000 hectares of paddy area under the Joint Crediting Mechanism (JCM).

The project in Japan is expected to reach 150,000 hectares eventually, or 10% of Japan’s total rice paddy fields, said the partners.

Mantle Labs has developed technology to verify rice methane projects and said the partnership marks its entry into the Japanese market, one of the largest for rice methane credits.

“The platform accurately delineates rice paddies within project areas, checks baseline eligibility and enables emission estimation,” said Mantle Labs.

“The collaboration highlights the potential efficacy of integrating the use of such technology into the Japanese programme rules and project review processes, a significant step forward in advancing environmental monitoring capabilities in Japan,” it added.

Along with France’s CarbonFarm, Mantle Labs is one of the key companies working on digital monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV) in the sector.

Last year, it was selected by US-based registry Verra to help with an investigation of suspended rice methane projects in China.

Rice, one of the world’s major food crops, is thought to be responsible for between 10% and 14% of global methane emissions, a highly potent GHG with a global warming potential 27-30 times greater than carbon dioxide (CO2) over 100 years, and 40% of all irrigation water used globally.

Flooded rice fields encourage bacteria and the progressive decay of plants, turning them into methane emissions.

J-Credits can be created through the reduction of methane emissions from rice production using methodology AG-005, ‘Extension of the mid-drying period in wet rice cultivation,’ which extends the drying period of rice fields by approximately seven days and reduces methane emissions

The methodology was approved in March 2023 and is currently going through a small revision.

Published Date: April 2, 2024