Google signs five-year rice-methane carbon credit deal with Mitti Labs to scale climate-smart farming across India

Partners and deal scope

Mitti Labs announced on September 10, 2026, a five-year carbon credit agreement with Google under which the deep-tech company will deliver one million high-integrity rice methane credits to Google by 2030, described in the announcement as the largest rice methane offtake to date. The partnership expands Mitti Labs' climate-smart irrigation program to 100,000 hectares of smallholder rice farms in India and is positioned to transition more than 70,000 farmers to water- and methane-saving irrigation practices, with stated goals of eliminating three million tons of near-term warming impact on a GWP20 basis (equivalent to about one million tons on a GWP100 basis) while conserving billions of gallons of water across stressed regional basins.

Field-level technology and methane savings

Mitti Labs pairs on-the-ground farmer engagement with satellite radar monitoring and a GeoAI platform developed with NASA support, fusing high-resolution radar data with ground-truth measurements to track crop health, soil moisture, and flooding at the resolution of individual smallholder plots. Under continuous flooding, rice paddies account for more than 10% of global methane emissions, according to the announcement; Mitti Labs' alternate irrigation practices are reported to cut methane emissions from rice fields by up to 50% and reduce irrigation volumes by close to 40% while maintaining yields. The water savings are projected to reach billions of liters nationally, an amount the company says is equivalent to Bengaluru's annual supply for three years.

Independent validation and company growth

Mitti Labs' carbon credit methodology has received an "A" rating from carbon credit ratings agency Sylvera for implementation quality and measurement rigor. The company reports that its programs have already saved an estimated 500 billion liters of water, roughly equivalent to Bengaluru's annual supply, and that it has grown to 150 employees since launching in 2023. Customers named in the announcement include Cool Effect, Ebro Foods, and Syngenta, and Mitti Labs has previously raised $12.5 million from investors including Lightspeed India, Aramco Ventures, Voyager Ventures, Godrej Industries Group, Cisco Foundation, Francis Family Fund, and Volta Circle.

Leadership commentary and next steps

Google's Chief Sustainability Officer Kate Brandt said Google is committed to solutions that neutralize warming across both the near and long term, calling Mitti Labs' approach a way to deliver near-term atmospheric impact by cutting methane while conserving water and supporting smallholder farmers. Mitti Labs co-founder Xavier Laguarta framed the partnership as an accelerator for the company's mission to reduce emissions, save water, and strengthen the livelihoods of the roughly 150 million smallholder rice farmers globally, and said the Google backing will support expanded AI crop modeling and radar capabilities aimed at building "digital twin" datasets of millions of rice fields. Delivery of the contracted credits runs through 2030, providing the next verifiable milestone for the agreement.