# Do CCTS afforestation credits shrink if farming moves elsewhere because of the project?

Canonical: https://senseible.earth/answers/ccts-afforestation-displaced-farming-leakage

Only if the move cuts carbon stocks on the land that receives the farming. Under tool BM-T-AR-0005, displaced grazing counts as zero in five cases, such as staying within the receiving land's carrying capacity. Otherwise leakage is the tree, shrub and soil carbon lost on that land.

## Grazing that counts as zero

- Animals moved to existing grazing land without exceeding its carrying capacity.
- Animals moved to non-grazing grassland, within its carrying capacity.
- Animals moved to cropland abandoned within the last five years.
- Animals moved to forest, with no tree clearing or loss of crown cover.
- Animals moved to a zero-grazing system.

## The calculation otherwise

1. Biomass lost per hectare = [1.1 x tree biomass x (1 + 0.25) + shrub biomass x (1 + 0.40)] x 0.47, where 1.1 adds dead wood and litter, 0.25 and 0.40 are root-shoot ratios and 0.47 is the carbon fraction.
2. Soil carbon lost per hectare = reference stock x (factors before minus factors after), using the BM-T-AR-0006 tables. It is zero if only grazing moves in, or if the result is negative.
3. Add the two, multiply by the displaced area and by 44/12.

## If you do not know where farming went

Use the mean above-ground forest biomass for the region from the IPCC Good Practice Guidance for land use, unless you can justify another value.

## Limits of the tool

- It does not apply if displacement drains wetlands or peat.
- Market effects, such as changes in crop prices or supply, are treated as zero.

## Worked example: 10 ha of crops moved onto scrub

- Tree biomass on the receiving land: 20 t dry matter per ha, no shrubs (illustrative)
- Biomass carbon lost: 1.1 x 20 x 1.25 x 0.47 = 12.9 t C per ha
- Over 10 ha: 129 t C x 44/12 = about 474 t CO2e of leakage, soil change aside

## What Senseible does here

Senseible gives carbon credit eligibility signals from your records; it does not register projects or issue credits. It keeps dated, fingerprinted fuel and electricity invoices that a project's monitoring records can draw on.

- [Soil carbon in afforestation](https://senseible.earth/answers/ccts-afforestation-soil-carbon-tool)
- [Afforestation CCTS credits](https://senseible.earth/answers/bm-fr05-002-afforestation-ccts-credits)
- [FPO developer contract checklist](https://senseible.earth/answers/fpo-carbon-credit-developer-contract-checklist)

Sources: [BEE, BM-T-AR-0005 Estimation of the increase in GHG emissions attributable to displacement of pre-project agricultural activities in A/R ICM project activity (CCTS Offset Mechanism, version 1.0, 27 March 2025)](https://beeindia.gov.in/WriteReadData/RTF1984/RTF-PDF-bf23969b1e527913_1776061833.pdf), [BEE, BM-T-AR-0006 Tool for estimation of change in soil organic carbon stocks (CCTS Offset Mechanism, version 1.0, 27 March 2025)](https://beeindia.gov.in/WriteReadData/RTF1984/RTF-PDF-bab2189eb243ca93_1776061843.pdf)

Last reviewed 2026-10-25.