Your food is not on the EU's carbon border list.
Buyers still ask what a kilo of your tea, rice or spice costs the air. The answer rises and falls with the seasons. Tap a month to see what burns then.
CBAM stands for Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism. Think of a toll gate on the EU border for heavy goods. Only iron and steel, aluminium, cement, fertilisers, hydrogen and electricity go through it. Tea, rice and spices do not.
- Tea, rice, spices: not on the EU forest list either. EUDR is the EU Deforestation Regulation, a forest check on a short list: cattle, wood, cocoa, soy, palm oil, coffee and rubber.
- Coffee, cocoa: on that list. Your EU buyer must show where each lot grew. For large and medium buyers this starts 30 December 2026. For micro and small buyers it starts 30 June 2027 (30 December 2026 if they already handled timber).
A year on the farm and in the factory
Pick your trade. The ring shows the twelve months. Tall petals are busy months, short ones are quiet. Then tap a month.
Tea
Tall: the factory is running (April to October). Short: idle in winter. Dotted: the season may start or end here, so the example does not say.
What burns
- Coal or gas heats the dryer. This is usually the biggest burn in this example.
- Grid power turns the withering fans (they soften the leaf), the rollers and the sorters, measured in kWh, kilowatt hours.
- A diesel generator, called a DG set, covers power cuts.
- A 2010 audit by BEE (Bureau of Energy Efficiency) found a large factory used about 0.55 kWh, 0.72 kg of coal or 0.32 scm of gas (standard cubic metres), and 0.07 litres of diesel for each kg of made tea.
See a worked example
- Coal factory, 1,900 tonnes of made tea in a season
- Coal: 1,457.6 tonnes × 1.76 = 2,565.4 tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2)
- Power: 8,62,897 kWh × 0.675 = 582.5 tonnes
- Diesel: 1,36,400 litres × 2.645 kg CO2 per litre (the factor this study uses) = 360.8 tonnes
- Total: 2,565.4 + 582.5 + 360.8 = 3,508.7, about 3,509 tonnes. Divide by 1,900: 1.85 kg per kg of made tea
- Gas factory, 2,100 tonnes of made tea in a season
- Gas: 6,29,896 scm × 2.05 = 1,291.3 tonnes
- Power: 8,05,999 kWh × 0.675 = 544.0 tonnes
- Diesel: 1,45,000 litres × 2.645 kg CO2 per litre = 383.5 tonnes
- Total: 1,291.3 + 544.0 + 383.5 = 2,218.8, about 2,219 tonnes. Divide by 2,100: 1.06 kg per kg of made tea
- On gas: (1.85 − 1.06) ÷ 1.85 = 0.43, about 43% less per kg
Example from two Jorhat factories in a 2010 BEE audit, so the quantities are old. Coal uses India's default of 1.76 kg CO2 per kg; Assam coal often carries more, so use your supplier's value. Grid power has a figure of 0.675 kg of carbon dioxide (CO2) per kilowatt hour (kWh, one unit on your electricity bill) for FY 2025-26. That year runs April 2025 to March 2026. Think of it as the calorie count on a packet.
What the buyer asks
- Season totals: coal in tonnes, gas in scm, grid kWh and DG diesel in litres.
- Kg of made tea for the same season.
- The figure per kg of made tea, with the factors named.
- If you buy green leaf: kg bought, so the buyer can add the garden side.
- Any firewood, shown on its own line as biogenic CO2 (from plants, not fossil fuel).
Cold store
Solid: October, 80,000 kWh. Dotted: the example gives no month for its loading figure of 1,20,000 kWh (see the worked example), so we do not guess.
What burns
- The example names only October. For July, read your bill and your stock register.
- Three lines burn all year: electricity, backup diesel and refrigerant top-ups.
See a worked example
- A potato cold store in an example loading month
- Bill: 1,20,000 kWh. Stock register: 4,000 tonnes in store
- 1,20,000 ÷ 4,000 = 30 kWh per tonne-month (one tonne kept for one month)
- 1,20,000 × 0.675 = 81,000 kg of CO2
- Backup diesel: 2,000 litres × 2.68 = 5,360 kg of CO2
- The same store in October
- Bill: 80,000 kWh. Stock: 2,000 tonnes
- 80,000 ÷ 2,000 = 40 kWh per tonne-month. Higher only because the store is half empty
- A separate example from another store, not part of that month: one top-up of cooling gas
- HFC-134a is a cooling gas that traps heat in the air. 40 kg added × 1,530 = 61,200 kg CO2e (all warming gases counted as if they were carbon dioxide)
- Ammonia plants count zero for leaks
These are example figures, not a sector average. Compare like months at like stock levels. Grid power has a figure of 0.675 kg of carbon dioxide (CO2) per kilowatt hour (kWh, one unit on your electricity bill) for FY 2025-26. That year runs April 2025 to March 2026. Think of it as the calorie count on a packet.
What the buyer asks
- kWh per tonne-month, with your average tonnes in store taken from your stock register.
- The temperature the store is held at.
- Diesel burnt to keep the store cold in power cuts.
- Kg of cooling gas topped up, with the gas name read from the service invoice, not the machine plate.
Rice mill
The example for rice mills gives a whole year, not months, so every petal is dotted and level. Your own twelve bills draw the real ring.
What burns
- Husk, the shell of the paddy, fires the boilers in parboiling mills. About 89% of Karnal's rice is parboiled. Husk CO2 is biogenic (from plants, not fossil fuel), so it is shown on its own line.
- Grid power runs the mill. For most mills it is the whole fossil figure.
- Diesel runs generators and loaders.
See a worked example
- A medium parboiling mill in Karnal, Haryana, a year in 2017-18
- Paddy: 2.1 million tonnes ÷ 29 mills, about 72,400 tonnes. Rice at 65%: about 47,100 tonnes
- Power: 54,85,716 kWh × 0.675 = about 3,703 tonnes of CO2
- Per tonne of rice: 37,03,000 kg ÷ 47,100 tonnes = about 79 kg of CO2
- The whole cluster
- 313 million kWh × 0.675 = about 2,11,000 tonnes. Divided by 2.88 million tonnes of rice: about 73 kg per tonne
Example from a TERI cluster profile with 2017-18 quantities. Grid power only: boiler methane and nitrous oxide, diesel and husk CO2 are extra lines. Use your own bills. Grid power has a figure of 0.675 kg of carbon dioxide (CO2) per kilowatt hour (kWh, one unit on your electricity bill) for FY 2025-26. That year runs April 2025 to March 2026. Think of it as the calorie count on a packet.
What the buyer asks
- kg of CO2e per tonne of milled rice. CO2e: all warming gases counted as if they were carbon dioxide.
- Husk CO2 shown separately as biogenic.
- Whether paddy growing is included. Flooded fields give off methane, and that needs farm data a mill does not hold.
- Monthly paddy in, rice despatched, husk burnt and power bills.
Spices
The example for spices gives one month of factory bills and one farm crop, not a calendar, so every petal is dotted and level. Your own twelve bills draw the real ring.
What burns
- Dryers: LPG (liquefied petroleum gas), diesel or firewood. Sun drying burns nothing.
- Steam to sterilise: the boiler fuel.
- Cleaning and grinding: electricity, measured in kWh, kilowatt hours. Cold storage after drying adds more.
- Turmeric is boiled before drying. That fuel is easy to miss.
- Take a full month or year so busy and quiet months even out.
See a worked example
- Ground chilli, from farm to factory gate. CO2e: all warming gases counted as if they were carbon dioxide.
- Farm: 150 kg of nitrogen fertiliser per hectare × 0.01 × 44/28 × 273 = 643.5 kg CO2e per hectare
- (0.01 is the share that escapes as nitrous oxide gas. 273 is how hard that gas warms compared with CO2.)
- 643.5 ÷ 3,000 kg of dried chilli per hectare = 0.2145 kg CO2e per kg
- Making the fertiliser: 150 × 4.0 = 600, then 600 ÷ 3,000 = 0.200
- Farm total: 0.2145 + 0.200 = 0.4145. At 1.05 kg of chilli per kg of powder: 0.435
- Factory, one month
- Power: 18,000 kWh × 0.675 = 12,150 kg of CO2
- LPG: 1,200 kg × 2.98 = 3,576 kg of CO2
- (12,150 + 3,576) ÷ 60,000 kg of powder = 0.262
- Total: 0.435 + 0.262 = 0.697 kg CO2e per kg of powder, before packing and transport
Every quantity here is an example value; use your own. Indirect nitrous oxide and the CO2 from urea would add to the farm line. The farm line is usually the larger part. Grid power has a figure of 0.675 kg of carbon dioxide (CO2) per kilowatt hour (kWh, one unit on your electricity bill) for FY 2025-26. That year runs April 2025 to March 2026. Think of it as the calorie count on a packet.
What the buyer asks
- kg CO2e per kg of finished spice. Whole and ground spice get separate figures.
- Where the boundary sits: farm to your gate, or including transport.
- The period, the factors and where each came from.
- Which parts you measured and which you estimated.
- Farm and factory split, so the buyer can see where it sits.
Buyers want one number per kilo.
Put your bills in and get a first per kg figure for your own product. It is a draft from your own numbers.