Improving carbon initiatives aimed at smallholders: Addressing opportunities and challenges through better communication

This guide for practitioners will help you to better understand different ways one could:

• Communicate carbon project messages to different audiences
• Support communications between actors
• Provide information on complex concepts around climate change, carbon sequestration and carbon markets to farmers.

The Approach

In order to understand these challenges and find ways in which to improve communication techniques to better inform farmers about carbon projects, a workshop dubbed Communicating Carbon brought together carbon project practitioners who are already working closely with farmers to ensure they benefit from these new payment opportunities The main aim of the event was to share lessons learned with other carbon project practitioners (and potential project teams), agriculture and forestry extension service providers, farmers’ organizations participating in carbon or other ecosystem service payment projects, along with investors and national apex climate change organizations.

The carbon project practitioners, many of whom work with non-governmental organizations, act as ‘brokers’ between carbon buyers and farmers in Ethiopia, India, Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda. Farmers are urged to plant more trees or conserve water and soil in order to sequester carbon in the soil to help offset greenhouse gas emissions.