Regenerating landscape, our climate and agricultural communities.
Carbon farming refers to a variety of agricultural methods that sequester atmospheric carbon in soil, crop vegetation and biomass.
The aim of carbon farming is to increase the rate at which carbon is sequestered into soil and plant material in order to improve farm productivity, increase soil health and create a net loss of carbon from the atmosphere.Increasing carbon content in soil has many benefits, including aiding plant growth, increasing soil water retention capacity, building flood resistance, drought resistance and reducing the need to use fertilisers.
While increasing carbon levels in soil is nothing new in regenerative farming, more and more landowners are starting to practice carbon farming as a result of government policies that encourage them to implement techniques that will sequester carbon.
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.