Promising ways to service global demand for carbon offsets.
Carbon farming is a name for a variety of agricultural methods aimed at sequestering atmospheric carbon into the soil and in crop vegetation and biomass. The aim of carbon farming is to increase the rate at which carbon is sequestered into soil and plant material with the goal of improving farm productivity, increasing soil health and creating a net loss of carbon from the atmosphere.
Increasing a soil's organic matter content can aid plant growth, increase total carbon content, improve soil water retention capacity and reduce fertiliser use.
The practice of carbon farming is often done by individual land owners who are given incentive to use and to integrate methods that will sequester carbon through policies created by governments.
Sequestration of soil organic carbon (SOC) is a process that involves the net removal of CO2 from the atmosphere by plants and micro-organisms and its storage in vegetative biomass and in soil.
Approximately 45% of Soil Organic Matter (SOM) is carbon. Without carbon there is no soil and without soil almost the entire terrestrial ecosystem collapses. In most Australian soils SOM has been steadily declining since European style agriculture began.
Carbon is at the epicentre of a complex interplay that exists between living matter, dead matter, organic matter and mineral matter; it’s the key ingredient that makes a soil not only fertile – but healthy.
The Emissions Reduction Fund (ERF) is a scheme created by the Australian Government’s Clean Energy Regulator (CER) that provides incentives for a range of organisations and individuals to adopt new practices and technologies to reduce their emissions. It is enacted through:
Carbon Credits (Carbon Farming Initiative) Act 2011
Carbon Credits (Carbon Farming Initiative) Regulations 2011
Carbon Credits (Carbon Farming Initiative) Rule 2015
This means that participants can earn Australian Carbon Credit Units (ACCUs) for their emissions reductions efforts. One ACCU is earned for each tonne of carbon dioxide equivalent (tCO2-e) stored or avoided by a project.
ACCUs can be sold to generate income, either by the owner selling them to the government through a carbon abatement contract or in secondary markets.
The methodology currently effective for soil carbon projects under the Emissions Reduction Fund is the Measurement of soil carbon sequestration in agricultural systems method.