Commitment from farmers ‘significant’ or too much?

Friday, July 27, 2012
The Government understands that it is asking a lot of farmers wanting to take part in the Carbon Farming Initiative. The commitment asked of farmers is significant, to ensure that credits generated by the scheme meet the strictest global standards, according to parliamentary secretary for climate change, Mark Dreyfus. "Australia comes to this with a very high reputation for scientific integrity, for regulatory integrity. We're expecting that Australian carbon credits will be in world demand for those reasons.” he said. Australian farmers will benefit from having to meet high standards to earn carbon credits. 

To earn credits for native revegetation projects, for example, that land must be locked up for 100 years.
But will the enthusiastic buyers find any growers willing to take the risk of signing a contract that lasts longer than their lifetime? Will the rules that make CFI Carbon Credits so attractive to buyers have the reverse effect on sellers?
Could it be that locking up land is overkill, especially in the environmental plantings methodology?
  1. The methodology requires a planting density that reaches only 20% ‘crown cover’ at maturity, leaving 80% of the project area grassy vegetation that will need grazing to avoid baring of the soil due to desertification (rank and dead grasses stifle fresh grasses emerging).
  2. The carbon in the understory is not factored into the sequestration equation anyway.
  3. Occasional grazing can reduce fire loads.
  4. The methodology itself makes allowances for occasional grazing from 3 years after establishment.
Carbon Faming is not about locking productive land up. It is about making the land more productive by integrating trees and shrubs into the farm design. A change in practice is more attractive to a farmer if it has a production benefit.
But Mark Dreyfus says there is some good news: farmers will not face financial penalties if the credits they've earned are destroyed by a bushfire or drought. Now you're talking.

Don't call it Carbon Farming

Thursday, July 12, 2012
They destocked Henbury Station and they’ve locked all 500,000ha of it up, and called it carbon farming.  It is the most high-profile example of ‘carbon farming’ but it sends all the wrong messages. Call it “Conservation” or a National Park, but it is not farming. 

It is simplistic and wrong to say that locking country up will protect it from degradation. The relationship between animals and vegetation is symbiotic when managed for balance. Grazing animals need plants for food. Plants need animals to graze them to prevent loss of groundcover and desertification which occurs when grasses die and oxidise. Plants need animals to disturb the soils around them and incorporate their carbon-rich dung and nitrogen-rich urine into it. Grazing can reduce fuel loads, reducing the severity of wildfires. And grazing is the only way that we can produce food in the rangelands. But not just any old grazing. 

Balance must be achieved by exposing the plants to grazing only to the point where the plant can easily recover. The roots of the plant need the leaves to be trimmed because they die back and then they return downwards. In each direction - coming and going - the soil microbes are excited by the food that the roots give them. Decomposing roots are partyfood for bacteria, etc. Roots returning by pushing down through the soil release delicious nectar that is also partyfood. The more partyfood we can offer soil microbes, the more they will manufacture the soil carbon which builds fertility, soil stability, water efficiency, biodiversity, and resilience. Destocking is a tactical tool, but it is not a strategy. It is not the presence of animals that is the problem; it is the recovery time allowed to the plant to deploy its leaves for maximum growth and maximum extraction of carbon from the atmosphere through the unique action of photosynthesis.