Soil carbon: More than 60 farmers in Carbon Biodiversity pilot

Paying farmers to plant trees is being touted as an emissions-reduction breakthrough. Here’s how we’ll find out if it works.

Farmers will soon be paid to improve biodiversity on their properties. Picture: Zoe Phillips

More than 60 farmers across Australia could be among the first to get paid to plant more trees on their properties, in a bid to increase biodiversity while earning carbon credits.

But, while the Federal Government is touting the program as the next breakthrough in agriculture-related emissions reductions, a recent paper from the Australian Farm Institute warns many soil carbon claims are “exaggerated” and that the costs of such schemes could end up far outweighing the income farmers earn.

The Department of Agriculture is finalising offers under the Carbon+Biodiversity pilot, a $3.4 million project designed by Australian National University.

Participating farmers in six pilot regions - North Central Victoria, Central West NSW, South Australia’s Eyre Peninsula, North Tasmania, Queensland’s Burnett-Mary region, and Western Australia’s South West - will be able to gain credits for carbon abatement through the Emissions Reduction Fund, while also being paid for increasing biodiversity, through the ANU scheme.

Farmers provide details of their planned planting projects, and they would then be offered a price they’ll be paid to follow through within six months.

A Department of Agriculture spokesman said 83 applications were received with “broad distribution” across the six regions, and more than 60 funding offers have been made.

“We received a higher than expected number of applications, which will help trial the protocols developed by ANU,” the spokesman said.

“Typical projects were designed to be a part of normal farm operations, for example providing shelter belts or revegetating creeks or gullies.”

The pilot has attracted renewed attention this month, following the release of the UN’s latest intergovernmental report on climate change, and increasing pressure on the Morrison Government to sign up to a net-zero emissions target.

The Nationals have stressed farmers have already done the “heavy lifting” on emissions reductions, and will not sign up to any targets without seeing the implementation costs first.

Agriculture Minister David Littleproud has championed the biodiversity scheme as a world first, previously saying it “basically put agriculture back to net zero emissions” if 16 per cent of the ag landscape eventually sign up to it.

However, an AFI paper released this month by three leading Melbourne University ag sciences researchers found the cost of changing land management practices “generally far exceeds” net income from carbon credits.

“Because in large areas of Australia rainfall is limiting for plant growth, sustained increases in stored soil carbon … even under the most favourable land management, are difficult to achieve,” the report stated.

“Farmers should be aware that the exaggerated claims made by many carbon aggregators are not necessarily achievable.”

The authors found other ecosystem benefits and how they improve productivity could present greater gains to farmers than carbon credits.