Vivent Carbon supports smallholder farmers across India, Africa and Southeast Asia to adopt regenerative practices — no-till, cover cropping, composting, and agroforestry — that build soil carbon, improve crop yields, and generate verified carbon income.
Regenerative agriculture is not a single practice but a philosophy of farming that prioritises soil health above all else. By minimising soil disturbance, maintaining permanent living soil cover, diversifying crops, and integrating trees into farm systems, regenerative farmers gradually rebuild the organic matter, microbial life, and structure of agricultural soils — reversing decades of degradation caused by tillage-intensive, chemical-dependent farming.
As soil organic carbon increases, so does the soil's water-holding capacity, fertility, and resilience to drought and flood. The result is a self-reinforcing improvement: healthier soils grow more productive crops, which return more organic matter to the soil, which grows even better crops. Farmers see real, measurable improvements in yield and input cost savings from Year 2–3 of adoption.
Vivent Carbon enables these transitions by providing upfront training, technical support, and soil monitoring infrastructure — and by securing carbon finance that compensates farmers for the carbon sequestered in their increasingly healthy soils. We work exclusively with smallholder farmers, not large commercial operations, because regenerative transitions are most transformative and most needed at the smallholder scale.
Vivent works with farmers to adopt the combination of practices that best suits their land, climate, and crops — then measures the actual soil carbon result.
Eliminating ploughing preserves soil structure, stops the oxidation of stored organic carbon, and dramatically reduces fuel costs. Soil organic matter increases at 0.1–0.3% per year under no-till, with cascading benefits for water retention and microbial diversity.
Planting legumes, grasses, and brassicas between cash crop cycles protects bare soil, fixes atmospheric nitrogen, suppresses weeds, and feeds soil microorganisms. Multi-species cover crop mixes out-perform monoculture covers for both carbon and agronomic outcomes.
On-farm composting of crop residues, manure, and green waste converts materials that would decompose aerobically (releasing CO₂) into stable humus that builds soil organic carbon. Community composting hubs support smaller farms that can not compost at scale individually.
Planting shade trees, windbreaks, and fruit trees alongside annual crops layers woody above-ground carbon onto soil carbon gains. Agroforestry systems sequester 2–4× more carbon than field-crop-only regen ag, and provide additional income from tree products from Year 4 onwards.
A structured transition programme that supports farmers at every stage of the shift to regenerative practices.
Vivent field teams take stratified soil samples from each enrolled farm — 0–15cm and 15–30cm depth. Lab analysis establishes baseline organic carbon, pH, texture, and bulk density before any practice change.
Farmers attend 2-day field workshops led by agronomists and peer trainers. Practice bundles are designed per farm based on soil type, crops, water access, and market context — not generic prescriptions.
Farmers implement their first regen season — typically beginning with cover crops and reduced tillage. Vivent provides seeds, equipment access (no-till seeders), and 1:1 field support in the first season.
Soil samples taken annually from the same locations as baseline. Near-infrared spectral analysis used for rapid screening, with wet chemistry validation on 20% of samples per verification cycle.
Change in soil organic carbon from baseline to monitoring year, corrected for bulk density and depth, converted to tCO₂e per hectare using IPCC Tier 2 or Verra VM0042 calculation methodology.
Third-party verifier audits soil records, practice documentation, and satellite-based practice confirmation (no-till confirmed via synthetic aperture radar imagery). Credits issued per verified carbon stocks.
≥72% of credit proceeds paid to farmers within 30 days of credit settlement. Payments linked to verified soil carbon achieved — farmers with better outcomes receive higher returns.
Annual agronomist review identifies which practices are working per farm. Practice adjustments made season by season to optimise both carbon outcomes and farm profitability over the full programme period.
Unlike forestry or biochar, regen ag directly improves the farm operation — the carbon income is a bonus on top of better yields and lower costs.
Farms enrolled for 3+ years in Vivent programmes report average yield increases of 15–25% for principal crops. Better water retention and soil biology deliver more consistent harvests even in drought years.
Each 1% increase in soil organic matter allows soil to hold 20,000 additional litres of water per hectare. Regen ag farmers report 30–45% reduction in irrigation requirements after 3 years.
Reduced tillage saves 40% on fuel. Cover crops fix nitrogen, reducing fertiliser spend by 20–35%. Combined input cost savings of $60–$180/ha/year are common after Year 2 of adoption.
Regenerative soils host 4–8× more earthworms, nematodes, and mycorrhizal fungi per gram than conventionally tilled soils. This below-ground biodiversity is the engine of soil health and farm resilience.
Permanent soil cover and improved soil structure reduce surface runoff by 40–70%, cutting topsoil erosion that is responsible for losing 3mm of productive topsoil globally every decade.
Healthier soil biology naturally suppresses some pest and disease pressure. Enrolled farmers reduce pesticide and herbicide use by 20–40%, improving environmental health and reducing on-farm chemical expenditure.
Vivent's regen ag programmes target smallholder systems where degraded soils are most limiting farm productivity and climate resilience.
Focusing on soybean, cotton, and wheat smallholders in the Deccan Plateau and Vidarbha region. Practice bundle emphasises no-till + legume cover crops + on-farm composting. Integrated with biochar to stack carbon income streams per farm.
Mixed smallholder systems in Kenya's Central Rift and Tanzania's Kilimanjaro region. Maize-legume intercropping, conservation tillage, and parkland agroforestry. Strong gender focus — 60% of enrolled farmers are women.
Feasibility study underway for rice and vegetable smallholders in the Ca Mau and An Giang provinces. Focus on alternate wetting-and-drying (AWD) rice management to reduce methane emissions alongside soil carbon.
Vivent's Vidarbha regen ag programme enrolled 3,200 cotton and soybean farmers across Amravati, Yavatmal, and Washim districts in 2022. The programme provided no-till seeders through a shared equipment cooperative model — 1 no-till seeder shared between 8 farmers — dramatically reducing the upfront barrier to practice adoption.
After three full growing seasons, enrolled farms show an average 0.28 percentage point increase in soil organic carbon — equivalent to 3.4 tCO₂e/ha of additional carbon stored. Cotton yields improved by 23% and input costs fell by ₹4,200/ha, making the agronomic case for regen ag completely independent of carbon income. Total carbon revenue averaged ₹24,000/farmer/year by Year 3.
Vivent's regenerative agriculture programmes are designed for smallholder farmers — with full training, technical support, and equipment access included. Carbon income starts from Year 2.