In late March, Arukah and our local partners in Cambodia had the opportunity to host a World Bank delegation to our biochar plant, the largest in Southeast Asia.

We had the opportunity to share our vision for biochar at scale, and discuss how our innovative and inclusive business model unlocks critical capital not only for large scale climate mitigation but also new incomes for climate adaptation, via allocating a 50% gross share of carbon credit income to participating smallholder farmers.

Our initiative is well aligned with Cambodia’s current national priorities across carbon sequestration, improved farming productivity for food security, improved economic livelihoods for farmers, additional income streams for value-add processing (mill-level), and improved air quality via diverting agriculture waste burning. And Cambodia’s large agriculture production, coupled with strong digital infrastructure for sensor-based tracking and smart systems, and digital payments all the way upstream to farmers, are key enablers for biochar at scale.

Unlocking new pathways to economic livelihoods will be increasingly critical in the coming years. Without interventions and enabling innovations, the World Bank estimates a 800 million job deficit in the Global South for fresh graduates in the coming decade.

Agriculture-rich nations in the Global South also are recovering from 2 rounds of fertiliser supply chain dislocations due to Covid-19, and then the Russia-Ukraine war.

With our local partner Soma —a pioneer and leader in Cambodia for regenerative and sustainable agriculture— Arukah has deep alignment: From the willingness to be first adopter of promising innovations that can establish foundations for large scale systems improvement, to our commitment to best in class, institutional project design and structuring, and our shared focus on improving the economic livelihoods of farmers via scalable market access.
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Our project also features domestic production of equipment by a local advanced manufacturer, Quantum. This will unlock additional pathways to economic livelihoods in Cambodia, via growing the demand for skilled advanced engineering work for local graduates - a model that could be replicated over time in more agriculture-rich emerging economies.

We are early in our journey still, but are grateful for the trust placed in us by our partners, and also new partners to come across global carbon credit buyers and project financiers - aligned to our vision of unlocking economic livehoods and flourishing from the Global South with resources that global challenges need.

We look forward to the growth that will be unlocked in the years to come from harnessing the strengths of our region in agriculture resources and know-how, bottom-up Global South innovation and willingness to adopt best in class solutions, along with our global network, building from Singapore’s deep capital markets, and reach into global finance and cutting edge innovation.