A practical methodology for allowing farmers to be rewarded for storing more carbon in their soils will soon be submitted to the Government’s expert panel for assessment under the Carbon Farming Initiative. The key feature of the methodology is the way it overcomes the oft-quoted barriers to trade in soil carbon credits: additionality, permanence, and measurement.The methodology adopts the principle of a buffer pool to manage risk to 90% certainty to address the twin issues of measurement and permanence. A buffer pool is formed by banking a percentage of the tonnes submitted for sale and using them as ‘insurance’ so buyers can be confident they are getting what they are paying for. Individual farmers will be protected against losses by the pool which will be aggregated across climate zones, spreading the risk. The Government’s use of a 5% buffer to address ‘risk of reversal’ in its regulations is an endorsement of this principle.

Under this methodology, the Landholder must choose two or more practices and/or products from a menu to be applied to the project area throughout the period specified. This multiple methods approach not only reflects the normal behaviour of carbon farmers, but also addresses the Additionality Requirement because the likelihood that more than 5% of the farmers in a district, climate zone or other segment would choose the same combination of options is low
 
Permanent behaviour change in the land care sector is rooted in economic self-interest. The CFI provides for carbon credits, but a more powerful incentive for permanent change lies in the economic value delivered to the landholder by the accumulation of a soil carbon reserve.

Each project is defined with an initial 5 year reporting period, at the conclusion of which an initial parcel of Australian carbon credit units will be issued, based on the Net Abatement Number for the reporting period, and an initial Project Buffer Reserve allocated. A project participant may elect to continue the project with further reporting periods. The maximum total duration of a project is capped at 25 years. While economic self-interest in carbon credits would work continuously through an entry-level 5 year reporting period up to a 25 year cap, at the same time the increasing availability of Phosphorus and water would provide a continuing incentive to maintain the relevant behaviour. Simultaneously the process of culture change is expected to cement in place the land management practices as the new convention.

Farmers interested in increasing carbon sequestration in their soils should beware reports coming out of the Soil Carbon Research Program (SCRP) because they mistake conventional farming for ‘carbon farming’.

“Carbon Farming, under the Carbon Farming Initiative, requires a change in land management with a switch to one or more new practices, not business as usual. Yet the reports coming out of the SCRP claim to give results over periods of 30 and 40 years which make no reference to changes in land management,” says Michael Kiely, chairman of the Carbon Farming & Trading Association. The results of a stocktake of soil organic carbon on the Esperance sand plain are the first revealed in WA from the national SCRP. The Department of Agriculture and Food WA (DAFWA), cautioned farmers interested in increasing carbon sequestration, as the Esperance results showed changes might be small and would occur slowly over time.

“Scientists cautioning farmers against expecting to grow soil carbon are like the scholars who predicted that Columbus would sail off the end of the earth because it was flat. They could say that only because they hadn’t been there.” Mr Kiely maintains that scientific studies commonly under report carbon sequestration rates for many reasons. “They focus on a limited number of practices one at a time, whereas carbon farmers usually apply several techniques together,” he says. “The combined effect of these practices applied with the skill of an experienced carbon farmer explains why they commonly report soil carbon sequestration rates up to 10 times those recorded by scientists.”

Another reason for under-reporting is failure to sample soil deep enough in sandy soils. “Roots from perennials have been recorded reaching down as far as 7 metres in WA. Where there are roots there is carbon. These SCRP reports are based on only 30cm samples.” The most commonly-quoted ‘fact’ quoted to scare farmers rears its head in this report: soil carbon ties up nutrients such as N and P which are needed for plant growth, making them unavailable and therefore requiring that expensive fertilizer be added. “We need plant growth for carbon sequestration as well, so we have this Alice in Wonderland proposition: we can’t grow soil carbon because it will prevent the growth of soil carbon,” he says. But the “C locks up N, P and S” conundrum exists only in the world of Theoretical Soil Chemistry. It takes no account of the impact of carbon on factors such as water retention and Phosphorus availability, he says. “Again, conventional science sees sequestration as a zero/sum game instead of the win/win proposition that it is.” The research is funded by the Australian Government’s Climate Change Research Program and the Grains Research and Development Corporation.

The search for Australia’s best ‘carbon farmer’ is on as part of the Carbon Cocky of the Year Awards. What started as a competition for farmers in the Central West of NSW five years ago has now gone national to celebrate the passing of the Carbon Farming Initiative legislation which provides incentives for farmers to adopt sustainable practices. More than 35 carbon farmers have been recognised in the Awards since they started in 2007. “At that time the link between farming and climate change was all negative, focussing on emissions. But the positive contribution agriculture can make by extracting CO2 from the atmosphere was best communicated by celebrating the people who invented carbon farming: carbon farmers,” says Louisa Kiely, organiser of the Awards.

Notable farmer/innovators in the Central West include Col Seis from Gulgong (pasture cropping), Bruce Maynard from Narromine (no-till/no-kill cultivation), and Michael Inwood of Bathurst (electric utility truck). The Awards are being conducted as part of Carbon Farming Week on 27-29 September, 2011 in Dubbo NSW. They are to be presented at the Gala Awards Dinner which is to be staged during the Carbon Farming Conference & Expo.

The theme of the conference is “Preparing farmers to trade”, reflecting the new opportunities to earn carbon credits by on-farm activities including storing carbon in soils and trees, reducing emissions from animals and reducing emissions from fertiliser. The Award is still open for 2011 for conservation graziers and conservation farmers who have innovated their farm management for greater sustainability. Click here for more information about the awards.

High profile sponsors of this year’s awards include Best Environmental Technologies, Ylad Living Soils, and Principle Focus. Organising the Awards and the Conference and Expo is Carbon Farmers of Australia, a not-for-profit company which provides education, information and representation services for carbon farmers. Carbon Farmers of Australia is part of a consortium which has submitted a methodology for soil carbon credits to the Department of Climate Change & Energy Efficiency’s expert panel, the Domestic Offsets Integrity Committee, for approval. Once approved, it will be the only national soil carbon offsets system operating in the world. 

Contact us for more information.

Trading under the CFI begins in November this year. That is why ‘preparing to trade’ is a central theme of this year’s Carbon Farming Conference. We have secured expert speakers from the global world of carbon trading and the highest levels of the Government.

James Schultz knows how to get the money flowing from international carbon markets. James, Director of GreenCollar Climate Solutions, has worked for the World Bank, the African Union and the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization, in setting up climate change adaptation/mitigation strategies and environment and natural resource management investment programs.

He will answer key questions like: What does a farmer need to know? What is "Greenhouse Gas Accounting"? Trading Experience- who has traded, and in what, and what are the results?

Shayleen Thompson is an insider. She was Australia’s lead negotiator on land issues on the Kyoto Protocol.  She is First Assistant Secretary, Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency.

Shayleen is the head of the Land Division which is responsible for delivering Australia’s national accounts for carbon emissions, leading on land issues in the international negotiations, implementing the Carbon Farming Initiative. She will reveal how farmers can get involved, what a methodology is, who can submit one, which methodologies have been submitted already, who has started to trade, who will buy?  

Freddy Sharpe is CEO of Climate Friendly, Australia’s leading carbon management business.  Freddy knows how to create offsets and sell them – or “delivering easy and innovative carbon solutions to businesses and individuals.” He will explain what a carbon exchange is and how it works, carbon credits trading for farmers, aggregation (ie. who do you deal with), where brokers fit in, how much middlemen take, and what to expect.