Carbon credits: African cotton farmers could soon be paid twice

Cotton remains a strategic cash crop for several African economies - Benin, Burkina Faso, Mali, Côte d'Ivoire, Chad - where millions of smallholder farmers depend on this export sector, which is highly exposed to global price swings. Against this backdrop, the idea of financially valuing carbon stored in agricultural soils is gaining traction, driven by the growth of voluntary carbon markets. According to Bird Story Agency, republished by AllAfrica, a scheme piloted in Uzbekistan could let farmers earn a double income: from selling cotton fibre, and from carbon sequestered in the soil beneath their fields. The source dispatch is very brief and does not specify the name of the programme, the organisations behind it (institution, NGO, private company), the amounts or volumes of credits involved, nor the technical methods used to certify soil carbon. For African producers, such a mechanism would represent a welcome diversification of often precarious rural incomes. However, transposing it from Uzbekistan - where the cotton sector is largely state-run - to African contexts dominated by smallholder farms raises unresolved questions: who would fund certification, how soil carbon would be reliably measured, and at what price these credits would be valued on voluntary markets known for their volatility and ongoing debates over real additionality.