Agriculture accounts for about 14 percent of global emissions and Kenyan farmers are the first to earn carbon credits using a new accounting system for low-carbon agriculture, VoiceOfAmerica reports.

A project funded by World Bank is bringing together thousands of small farmers in western Kenya using a sustainable farming accounting system, World Bank said.

Through the bank’s BioCarbon Fund, the Kenya Agricultural Carbon Project issued 24,788 credits — the first of their kind — under the Verified Carbon Standard last week.

World Bank’s BioCarbon Fund will buy some of the credits earned by the Kenyan project,
and plans to invest $600,000 by 2017. The bank did not give details on the price per credit.

The project in Kenya includes low-carbon farming techniques that increase
organic matter in the soil, keep carbon in the ground, and keep carbon out of the atmosphere.

About 45,000 hectares (110 acres) of farmland have been involved in the project so far, VoiceOfAmerica reports.

If it’s successful in Kenya, the initiative could be a model for similar programs in the world in cutting greenhouse gas emissions from farming. Agriculture accounts for about 14 percent of global emissions, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Heat-trapping gas from agriculture and livestock reached 4.69 billion tons of carbon
dioxide in 2010 — the most recent data available — according to the U.S.-based Worldwatch Institute, an environmental think tank in Washington. That was 13 percent more than 1990 levels.

Swedish nongovernmental organization Vi Agroforestry is implementing the program. The French Development Agency and the Syngenta Foundation for Sustainable Agriculture, based in Switzerland, are also supporting the project.