How one AI startup is helping rice farmers battle climate change

Summary

Fixing climate change is no small task — just ask carbon removal developers like Mitti Labs. The New York-based startup has developed technology to measure how much methane is released by rice paddies and uses it to train hundreds of thousands of farmers in climate-friendly practices. It’s the sort of high-touch endeavor that venture capitalists typically avoid. So how has Mitti managed to raise funding from its investors? In short: partnerships. Mitti has started working with The Nature Conservancy on a partnership to promote regenerative, no-burn agriculture, the startup exclusively told TechCrunch, the latest in a string of deals that extend its reach. Mitti will use its AI-powered models to measure, report, and verify the work done by the nonprofit’s workers on the ground in India, where they’re helping farmers implement a swath of climate-friendly practices. “Most of the project operations on the ground are from locals from the villages where these projects are being implemented,” co-founder Xavier Laguarta told TechCrunch. While Mitti’s main operations currently focus on developing projects that reduce the amount of methane generated by rice farming, the company is working to offer more software features to third parties, he said. “We can measure Scope 3 emissions from other project developers or corporations that are working with rice farmers,” Laguarta said, referring to emissions that an organization does not directly control. “Anyone who’s already running projects on the ground, that’s sort of like a SaaS solution that we can offer them.” Mitti isn’t alone in chasing the SaaS-partnership angle. Mati Carbon, which recently won the Xprize Carbon grand prize, develops measurement, reporting, and verification software for enhanced rock weathering, in which minerals spread on farm fields both remove carbon and fertilize the soil. Methane reduction projects generate carbon credits, which Mitti tracks using its software. The company takes a percentage of the cred...