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The Small-Holder Agriculture Mitigation Benefits Assessment (SHAMBA) tool

11am, March 31st, 2016

This tool and methodology allows carbon credit projects, such as those of Plan Vivo, to estimate carbon credits from soil carbon and other agricultural sources with data specific to African smallholders. This increases the volume of carbon credits for which smallholder farmers are eligible and enhances their access to other climate finance.

The SHAMBA (Small-Holder Agriculture Mitigation Benefit Assessment) model estimates greenhouse gas  emissions or removals resulting from a change in land management practices. SHAMBA is designed to model a baseline scenario (where land management activities continue as business as usual) and an intervention scenario consisting of activities that can be described as Climate Smart Agricultural practices (CSA) including, conservation agriculture, agroforestry and other tree planting. SHAMBA models the changes in carbon stocks in soils and woody biomass, and the greenhouse gas emissions from biomass burning, plant nitrogen inputs to soils, and fertiliser use over the accounting period for baseline and intervention activities. Net emissions and removals are calculated on a yearly basis for the length of the accounting period, in units of tonnes (t) of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) per hectare (ha).

You can access the tool here: The Small-Holder Agriculture Mitigation Benefits Assessment (SHAMBA) tool 

Institutions Involved

  • CGIAR
  • CCAFS
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