Google Buys 1 Million Mitti Labs Rice Methane Credits in Record India Deal

Summary

On September 10, 2026, Google agreed to buy 1 million carbon credits from Mitti Labs through 2030 under a four year contract, billed as the largest publicly announced purchase tied to methane cuts in rice farming. At peak, farms across Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana will cover about 100,000 hectares. Farmers will be paid to shorten flooding, which Mitti says can cut methane about 50% and irrigation water about 40% without lowering yields. Financial terms and farmer payments are undisclosed, although most project revenue goes to farming communities.

Founded in 2023 in New York and Bengaluru, Mitti’s GeoAI combines field measurements and proprietary data with synthetic aperture radar from public and commercial satellites, at 50 centimeters to 10 meters resolution, to monitor smallholder crop growth, soil moisture and flooding. Google began talks about a year ago, reviewed the technology and visited farms, citing water savings and scale. Gold Standard or Isometric can issue credits after independent verification. Mitti saved more than 500 billion liters in two years and serves over 100,000 farmers; customers include Cool Effect, Ebro Foods and Syngenta, with millions of farmers targeted by 2030.

Mitti’s largest offtake will support launches in the Philippines later in 2026, then Indonesia and other Southeast Asian markets in 2027; about 150 million farmers grow rice across India, Southeast Asia and China. The purchase comes as AI infrastructure complicates Google’s 2030 net zero goal: its June environmental report showed 2025 emissions rose 18% to about 14.5 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent. In January 2025, Google bought 100,000 tons of Indian removal credits from Gurugram based Varaha, its first large scale purchase there and the largest biomass biochar deal. A 150 megawatt Rajasthan solar project also raises Google’s contracted capacity with ReNew to 300 megawatts.