This month’s Australian visit by Gabe Brown, the US messiah for regenerative (regen) agriculture, should help increase long overdue interest in the practice aimed fundamentally at improving farm profitability through better soil management.
He is the travelling version of WA wheatbelt farmers and last year’s WA people of the year, Dianne and Ian Haggarty, who employ a like-minded “natural intelligence farming” method using natural systems to replace synthetic fertilisers with natural fertility methods such as plant diversity, compost extracts, worm liquids, and the microbiomes of ruminant livestock.
The idea is to improve life above the soil by repairing, rebuilding and revitalising ecosystems in the soil.
A side benefit is to boost carbon capture in soil as part of a system “which works with nature to repair, build, restore and revitalise the ecosystem starting with life in the soil and expanding to life above the soil”.
Brown, a Midwest farmer from South Dakota, travels for roughly 75 per cent of his time spruiking the benefits – yet amid his global roaming just 2 per cent of US farms adopt the methods.
He started using the method late last century when a series of droughts and storms nearly wiped him out and, having seen the benefits, he has spread word ever since.
In Australia there is a small percentage of devotees. There are about 135,000 farms, 88,000 which earn off-farm income and just 675 or so registered soil carbon projects.
The latter inflates the figures because some operators register multiple projects from the one property.
Regen farming in Australia has so far attracted more interest among grazing farmers than crop farmers and, while soil carbon is a by-product, the overarching goal is more productive farms.
Australia has the advantage of increased carbon potential to drive demand for regen farming, whereas the highly regulated US sector works against the move because farm loans tend to be based around government support packages for crops such as corn and soybeans which dictate farm methods.
The typical US farm response is “why buck the system when you increase your risks by potential loss of government and bank support?”
Australian supporters include – on the advisory side – Carbon Links’ Terry McCosker, Environmental Earth Sciences’ Phil Mulvey, and another farmer in Macdoch’s Alasdair Macleod who this month is hosting Brown at the Wilmot field day in NSW.
The February 26-27 event will feature Paul Girrawah, from the Waluwin Foundation, who will put some context into the movement by talking about whole-of-landscape Indigenous “farming” methods practised for tens of thousands of years.
Regen farming is based on the fact soil health is the basis to more productive farming which means fewer fertilisers, less tilling, more cover crops, better water absorption and retention, and more carbon storage.
If the soil can retain more water that means less flooding in heavy rains like those experienced in North Queensland this month.
Past practices like land clearing, overuse of fertilisers and leaving paddocks clear between crops has led to degraded farms nationally.
Nufarm’s Nuseed carinata cover crops are a classic alternative.
Gabe Brown’s key principles to better ecosystem processes start with knowing your context (what crops and livestock suit your farm), minimising disturbance through less fertilisers and tillage, the use of cover crops between seasons to keep soil covered, increased plant and animal diversity, keeping living roots in the soil for as long as possible and integrating animals into the landscape.
His mantra is diversity – common ground for common good.
This reduces input costs, improves farm resilience, increases soil and product nutrient density and when combined with tree belts helps boost rain and reduces soil run off.
Climate Friendly plants its foot
The Adamantem-backed Climate Friendly has now placed a foot in the soil carbon space with the acquisition of Greg Bender and Norman Marshall’s Australian Soil Management.
The diversification follows the Green Collar stake in Mathew Warnken’s Agriprove and is aimed at improving the firm’s available products given this year’s promised introduction of the integrated method to create carbon credits from multiple methods.
Canberra rhetoric falls short
Next week the Australia Institute will hold its Climate Integrity conference in Canberra which will continue its campaign against carbon offsets as apparent in recent media coverage rehashing old stories.
Federal Climate Minister Chris Bowen will be ruing his failure to lock away reforms such as the long mooted revamp of the Climate Active certification program for emission reduction.
The Carbon Markets Institute has pushed for a change to include both company initiated cuts – like Orica’s revamp of its Kooragang Island ammonia plant with new technology – and where necessary, offset schemes.
The offsets are required by some hard-to-abate sectors like aviation and steel which has resulted in companies like BHP and Rio employing both methods,
But Bowen has again failed to act to implement reforms like his $2bn hydrogen headstart program first unveiled in the 2022/23 budget and yet to see the grants awarded.
The administering arm, ARENA, says the three successful projects were told in January and would be unveiled “in coming weeks”. This is code for “during the election campaign” – a somewhat cynical exercise.
Companies like BP are stepping back from proposed SAF (sustainable aviation fuel) and green hydrogen projects like Kwinana, knowing Singapore and others have already walked down the line into mandated SAF levels for airlines using its airport.
Once again, the Albanese government has talked a big game but delivered little when it comes to whole-of-government implementation.
Question of competition heats up
The ACCC in the next week or two will release its draft backing of Qatar Airways taking a 25 per cent stake in Virgin Australia and the accompanying wet-lease deal allowing Virgin to use Qatar planes for its services.
The Foreign Investment Review Board has delayed considering the deal pending draft clearance, even though interim authorisation was granted in November.
The timing of the ultimately political deal puts it into an election context.
Separately, the regulator is now investigating both IAG’s $855m purchase of RACQ and Allianz’s underwriting of the South Australian automobile club RAA.
The big end of town is mopping up the little guys.
The former deal is almost certain to be subject to a longer-term merger inquiry and a statement of issues is likely to be released at the end of April.
In Queensland, Suncorp has the market-share lead in general insurance with about 30 per cent of home and motor policies, and IAG’s NRMA has about 10 per cent. RACQ has about 20 per cent.
Nationally the big two have at least 50 per cent market share and the ACCC should draw a line in the sand blocking any further strengthening of the general insurance duopoly.
Far better to shut the door on acquisitions than deal with the anti-competitive impacts later.
IAG boss Nick Hawkins and his advisers at Herbert Smith Freehills no doubt would disagree.
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