Italian Carbon Credit Supplier Receives International Accreditation

Italian olive grow­ers and other farm­ers can more eas­ily enter the car­bon credit mar­ket and ben­e­fit from a com­pre­hen­sive regen­er­a­tive agri­cul­ture approach.

The Alberami project has been offi­cially val­i­dated by the Indian entity Carbon Check under the International Carbon Registry (ICR), allow­ing it to sell car­bon cred­its inter­na­tion­ally.

These cred­its come from the first group of Italian farm­ers adher­ing to the Alberami pro­to­col, which aims to max­i­mize car­bon credit pro­duc­tion in the field.

Along with olive grow­ers, whose coop­er­a­tion was cru­cial for the ini­tia­tive’s launch, farm­ers who cul­ti­vate chest­nuts, almonds, wal­nuts, carobs, cit­rus fruits, cher­ries, figs, prickly pears, pis­ta­chios, pas­tures and arable land will be able to gen­er­ate and trade car­bon cred­its under the scheme.

“When an olive grower or another farmer is inter­ested in gen­er­at­ing car­bon cred­its with us, we guide them in the ini­tial phase of choos­ing which agro­nomic prac­tices to adopt,” said Francesco Musardo, the chief exec­u­tive and founder of the Alberami project.

The broth­ers who run LiMatunni, a 19^th-cen­tury olive farm in the south­ern Italian region of Puglia, were among the first to sell car­bon cred­its through the Alberami project.

“Our entire approach to olive farm­ing is organic and aims to let nature thrive,” Ascanio Sammarco, co-owner of the farm, told Olive Oil Times. ​“When we learned about the pos­si­bil­ity of putting our car­bon cred­its on the mar­ket, we did­n’t hes­i­tate.”

“We loved the idea as it con­nects a mod­ern approach to agri­cul­ture, respect­ful of the envi­ron­ment, to tan­gi­ble sup­port for farm­ers,” he added.

The com­pany man­ages olive groves in Erchie and Maruggio, in south­ern Puglia. It adopts organic farm­ing prac­tices in both areas, one of which has been severely affected by Xylella fas­tidiosa.

“To adhere to the lim­its and con­di­tions of the Alberami pro­to­col, we did­n’t have to change much in our work,” Sammarco explained. ​“While every­one can join, those prac­tic­ing organic farm­ing will find it eas­ier. Still, you must upgrade and add to your cur­rent prac­tices to gen­er­ate car­bon cred­its.”

The Alberami pro­to­col includes 13 prac­tices inspired by sus­tain­able and regen­er­a­tive agri­cul­ture.

“Farmers must adopt at least three new agro­nomic prac­tices from those listed in the pro­to­col,” Musardo said.

“Soil sam­pling is con­ducted to estab­lish a base­line, and sub­se­quent sam­ples are taken annu­ally,” he added. ​“These, along with other fac­tors, allow us to mea­sure the issuance of car­bon cred­its, which are then sold on the vol­un­tary com­pen­sa­tion mar­ket.”

Carbon cred­its are rou­tinely bought by com­pa­nies world­wide to off­set the car­bon foot­print they pro­duce. Carbon mar­kets like the ICR pro­vide the plat­form for such trades.

“The pro­ceeds from these sales are shared with the farm­ers, who receive up to 75 per­cent of the prof­its,” Musardo said.

“While it depends on the farm and the prac­tices, I would say that we are receiv­ing an aver­age of €250 per hectare,” Sammarco added.

According to Alberami, the more approved prac­tices farm­ers imple­ment, the higher the car­bon cred­its their activ­ity gen­er­ates.

“Those who sign up for the Alberami pro­to­cols are also com­mit­ting to a period of at least 15 years,” Musardo said.

The list of such prac­tices includes tran­si­tion­ing to organic agri­cul­ture, zero or min­i­mal tillage, green­ing the farm­land, plant­ing cover crops, inte­grat­ing more than one crop in the same area, cre­at­ing buffer strips, wind­breaks and hedges along the edges of tree or cereal crops, reusing prun­ing remains and reduc­ing syn­thetic fer­til­iz­ers.

“Regenerative agri­cul­ture means restor­ing some of the organic mat­ter con­tent to the soil, nur­tur­ing it, and enhanc­ing its fer­til­ity,” said Thomas Vatrano, agron­o­mist, olive oil taster, and Alberami’s tech­ni­cal con­sul­tant.

“Whether it’s mono­cul­ture or the exces­sive use and abuse of min­eral fer­til­iz­ers, soil has been under siege for a long time,” he added. ​“While regen­er­a­tive agri­cul­ture is a broad con­cept, we can sum­ma­rize it as restor­ing the soil’s fer­til­ity.”

The Alberami project cur­rently cov­ers more than 1,500 hectares and involves 67 farm­ers. ​“Thanks to the val­i­da­tion, we are now enter­ing a truly oper­a­tional phase, so the more than 10,000 hectares on the wait­ing list can be unlocked,” Musardo said.

Within ICR, the Alberami project is now listed as ​“Agroecology Italy.” Musardo men­tioned that they are already explor­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties to expand abroad.

“Once the method­ol­ogy is estab­lished, it will be straight­for­ward to scale it to other regions, in coun­tries such as Greece, Lebanon, Tunisia or Turkey,” he said.

According to Alberami, the car­bon cred­its being gen­er­ated are now in demand by sev­eral enti­ties.

“We are col­lab­o­rat­ing with com­pa­nies in the United Kingdom, includ­ing an asso­ci­a­tion foot­ball player, and with trans­port com­pa­nies, finan­cial insti­tu­tions and phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal enti­ties,” he said, hint­ing at agree­ments being final­ized with other credit exchange plat­forms in France, Spain and Switzerland.

While the car­bon credit mar­ket has been affected by sig­nif­i­cant abuses, the mar­ket-based solu­tion to curb­ing green­house gases con­tin­ues to be seen as an effec­tive way to com­bat the causes of cli­mate change.

The White House has announced new guide­lines to strengthen the car­bon off­sets mar­ket in the United States. The European Union also con­sid­ers car­bon mar­kets key to devel­op­ing greener agri­cul­ture.

According to Musardo, com­pa­nies are now much more atten­tive and dis­cern­ing about the qual­ity of the cred­its they buy.

“They seek high-qual­ity projects that guar­an­tee trans­parency and account­abil­ity,” he said. ​“Having one such project in Italy is par­tic­u­larly appeal­ing for our agri­cul­ture, as all invest­ments and prof­its stay in the coun­try.”