THERE IS TO BE A NATIONAL SOILS POLICY.
You will find the discussion paper written by Andrew Campbell at the following address:
www.clw.csiro.au/aclep/SoilDiscussionPaper.htm
Campbell A (2008) Managing Australia's Soils: A Policy Discussion Paper. Prepared for the National
Committee on Soil and Terrain (NCST) through the Natural Resource Management Ministerial Council
(NRMMC).
IT IS URGENT THAT SANE SOIL SYMPATHISERS LIKE YOU HAVE INPUT BECAUSE THOSE OF DIFFERENT PERSUASIONS WILL BE THERE IN SPADES.
PLEASE forward a copy of your submission and we'll publish it (if you like).
Saturday, November 29, 2008
Carbon Farming Conference slides will be available soon
Most of the speakers' slides will be posted at a location and linked from here asap. Be patient. I need to get permission.
Michael
Michael
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
DID YOU FEEL THE WIND SHIFT? (CONFERENCE DVD NOW AVAILABLE)
Hello,
If you were at the 2008 Carbon Farming Conference in Orange (18-19 November, 2008) you may have felt it. A subtle shift in the wind. The year before, when we stood up before the scientists and carbon farmers from every State of Australia and NZ, we had only promises. Not much data. And we had no explanation for why the scientists could not report any significant carbon increases in Australian farm soil. There were even people in high places who preached that our soils couldn’t sequester much carbon. And many people believed them.
That was then. This is now. The wind has shifted. The Carbon Farmers have got data. And we have found a reason why science has not been able to detect the carbon increases that we knew all along were possible.
Even the writers of the Green Paper have to revisit their calculations. Because Farmer after Farmer got up and revealed results that defy logic and science. Last year’s Carbon Cocky of the Year Anne Williams reported a 1% difference in Carbon between land cropped with compost tea and land left uncropped. That’s 1% increase in a year. Cam McKellar reported a 0.5% lift in 9 months. Col Seis reported his 1.8 – 4% in 10 years.
He then recited a strange set of scores: his soil bacteria had increased 3.5 times, fungus was up by 9 times, protozoa up by 10 times, and nematodes increased 60 times. And insect life had increased 600%.
And there, for all to see, was the reason for the gap between soil carbon’s behaviour when scientists observe it and its behaviour when its microbial manufacturers of carbon are given their head. Unfortunately, there has been not much research done on soil biology. Most of the scientists of note are chemists or physicists. Hence the reason the CSIRO Plant people cold make those astounding claims about the cost of humus, as if there was only one source of nitrogen – a bag.
Biology is not fashionable in the science world. Many referred to it disparagingly as ‘witches brew’, probably in response to the eccentric Rudolf Steiner and his cows horns and the phases of the moon. Certainly Ken Bellamy from Townsville was in danger of being burned at the stake for the carbon scores he reported from the “Probiotic” treatments he has devised. The soil’s rapid response to the biological inoculants forms the basis for the carbon trading system Mr Bellamy has established in the region around Townsville.
His carbon scores ranged from the sober 1.5% over three years in a banana plantation to a scary 1.5% in only 7 months under sugar cane and to an outrageous 2% in just over 2 months under pasture. He was also able to report that Townsville Council has been able to halve the water it puts on its parklands after inoculating with probiotics.
It is a sign of the times that, rather than putting him to the sword, our seasoned senior soil scientists agreed to put Mr Bellamy’s claims to the test.
As a result of these two factors - data (yet to be verified by peer-reviewed process) and biology (bcoming more popular, with Sydney University advertising for a senior lecturer recently) – there was a different tone to the conference. An atmosphere of hope. How different the final session was, when the same old messages and predictions of minimal soil carbon emerged. (Annette Cowie’s presentation was brilliant.) One soil carbon minimalist was so brave as to predict the future – that no innovation would ever solve the problem of carbon in rangelands.
"The science is lagging the politics," said Head of Land & Water, Michael Robinson.
PS. The value of soil carbon is measured in many different ways. Dr Lal, in his speech at the Carbon Farming Conference, revealed that soil carbon could be worth US$250 a tonne in production and environmental and social value. But if soil carbon was worth $20/tonne (as proposed by the Australian Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme), Anne Williams and Cam McKellar could have earned an extra $500/ha for the carbon they ‘grew’, Col Seis could have earned an extra $200/ha/year for 10 years (or a total of $2,000/ha), and Ken Bellamy’s grazier in Canberra would be $2000/ha better off (after only 2 months). [NB. Calculations based on increase in top 10cm, Bulk Density 1.4.]
Cheers!
Michael
The Carbon Farming Handbook
There are so many people with questons about soil carbon and carbon farming. Are you one of them? I thought so. That's why we have produced The Carbon Farming Handbook. It is a useful introduction to the concept, practice and philosophy of farming for carbon.
Written in an easy-to-understand style, it makes the complexities simple. Read it once and you'll be in command of the facts. Read it twice and you'll be an expert.
The Carbon Farming Handbook is perfect for briefing family members, colleagues, neighbours, agronomists, politicians and decision-makers, and anyone else who wants to know what this 'carbon farming' is all about.
Glance through the Contents and you'll get a feeling for what the Handbook offers:
2. Introduction
3. Contents
4. What is Soil Carbon?
5. Benefits of Soil Carbon
6. Carbon Farming & Natural Resources
8. Carbon Farming & Climate Change
11. Soil Carbon & Urgency
13. Changing the Way We Farm
15. Measuring Soil Carbon
21. Permanence
22. Additionality
26. Carbon Sinks & Sources
28. Soil Carbon Dynamics
29. On-Farm GHG Emissions
31. Cap & Trade Systems
33. Soil Carbon Trading Schemes
42. Carbon Farming Techniques
1. Grazing Management
2. Conservation Tillage
3. Pasture Cropping
4. Biological Farming (including Organic Farming)
5. Biodynamic Farming
6. Natural Sequence Farming
7. Keyline and Subsoil Ploughing
8. Ameliorant Soil Treatments
64. Panchagavya: Ancient Vedic Recipe for Soil Health
66. Useful Charts and Facts
70. Soil Carbon Frequently Asked Questions
80. Glossary
90. Useful References
You can order over the telephone or by fax or by email.
And remember, you are supporting the work of the Carbon Coalition.
Thank you.
Michael Kiely
Convenor
Carbon Coalition
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Australian Carbon Farmers Join UN FAO Campaign to change Kyoto
PRESS RELEASE 24 NOVEMBER, 2008
The United Nations Food & Agricultural Organisation has launched a global campaign to have the Kyoto rules re-interpreted so that soil carbon be recognised as a class of offset credit for greenhouse gas emissions trading.
Under the title of “Sustainable Intensive Production”, the FAO wants to see food production stepped up to meet world demand and that this be done sustainably. The FAO sees rewarding farmers for growing carbon in soils as the link to sustainable increases in production.
Carbon Farmers of Australia principal Michael Kiely addressed a recent FAO meeting at Purdue University in Indiana on Australia ‘carbon farming’ trends. Australia’s own Carbon Farming Conference (held last week) saw a working party produce a communiqué which:
• Endorsed the FAO’s campaign to change Kyoto rules
• Endorsed the NFF and other groups calling for Agriculture’s involvement in carbon markets
• Called for a CRC for Carbon Responsive Farming to be established
WORKING GROUP FROM THE CARBON FARMING EXPO & CONFERENCE 2008
Ken Bellamy, Prime Carbon
Jane Bradley, Northern Agricultural Catchments Council, WA
*Jeremy Bradley, Foodprints Farming
*Peter Calkin, Microsoils
Angus Campbell, Recycled Organics Unit, UNSW
Andrew Carroll, Health Support
Bryan Clark, Grain Growers Association
John Dalton, Landcare NSW
Nigel Diprose, Caidoz Consuting
John Fry, Conservation Volunteers
Gerry Gillespie, NSW Department of Environment and Climate Change
Chris Higgins, Western CMA
*Andrew Hines, Moss-Ridge Pastoral Company
*Barney Hughes, Microsoil
*Michael Kiely, Carbon Farmers of Australia
*Louisa Kiely, Carbon Farmers of Australia
Helen King, ANU
John Lawrie, Central West CMA
Honor Lee, organic farmer
Kate Lorimes-Ward, DPI NSW
Tony Lovell, Soil Carbon Australia
*Cath Marriott, Yarallah
Nicole Masters, Integrity Soils NZ
John Mills, NSW TAFE
*Hamish Munro, The Cattle Council of Australia
Tom Nicholas, Carbon Communicator
Susan Orgill, NSW DPI
*Col Seis, “Wiona”, Gulgong
*Paul Smith, Pipinui NZ
Peter Wadewitz, Wåste Management Association
Alan Welch, Central West CMA
Tim Wiley, Department Agriculture & Food, WA
*Bob Wilson, Evergreen Farming WA
*Farmers
COMMUNIQUE OF CONFERENCE
24 November, 2008
A working group of the 2008 Carbon Farming Conference and Expo, organised by Carbon Farmers of Australia, has endorsed the statement of the UNITED NATION’S FOOD & AGRICULTURE ORGANISATION communiqué “Mitigating Climate Change” with the following:
“We confirm:
1. that agriculture can respond immediately to sequester carbon through capture and storage.
2. that agriculture should be provided with an opportunity to support the national and global climate management effort and
3. that soil carbon should be included in voluntary offset markets.
“We support the position taken by the National Farmers Federation and those national farm lobby groups arguing for Agriculture to play a positive role in Climate Change Mitigation.
“We request that the Commonwealth Government establish a CRC for Carbon Responsive Farming.
“And we urge the United Nations’ Food & Agriculture Organisation’s Crop & Grassland Service convene a meeting of conservation and carbon farming representatives in Australasia as part of its campaign for soil carbon offset trading.”
MESSAGE OF SUPPORT FROM UN FAO
MESSAGE OF SUPPORT FROM
THE UNITED NATIONS FOOD & AGRICULTURAL ORGANISATION
Theodor Friedrich, Senior Officer (Crop Production Systems Intensification) FAO Crop and Grassland Service (AGPC) Room C-782 Viale delle Terme di Caracalla 00153 Rome Italy
FAO’s first and still valid mandate is to fight the hunger in the world and to achieve food security for all. In order to achieve this, agriculture has to be not only productive, but also sustainable, respecting the natural resource base and the environment. In recognition of the fact that agricultural production must be in harmony and not in opposition with environmental integrity, FAO is defining a new programme called sustainable production intensification.
A major component of this programme is the recognition of the mutual relationship between agricultural production and climate and the effects of climate change. Agriculture is directly affected by climate change but it has also a huge potential to mitigate climate change. Besides reducing GHG emissions, agriculture can restore in the soils significant amounts of carbon from the atmosphere. Farming practices and systems, such as conservation agriculture, have been developed, which allow such carbon sequestration in soils without sacrificing agricultural production or having negative repercussions on other ecosystem services. In a recent Conservation Agriculture Carbon Offset consultation a clear agreement could be reached that agriculture can in this way significantly contribute to climate change mitigation, while at the same time fulfill its role to produce food, fibre and other required products and to provide important ecosystem services.
With this in mind, the farmer can “produce” besides the traditional agricultural products also carbon, stored in the soils as a service to mankind, which hopefully will also get an adequate recognition and payment as other products and services. FAO is promoting concepts like conservation agriculture in all world regions through awareness raising activities, conferences and through demonstration projects in the field. FAO is convinced that with such practices agriculture will be able to feed the world in a sustainable way and welcome initiatives, such as the Carbon Farming Conference in Australia, which support this cause.
BACKGROUND TO UNITED NATION’S FAO SOIL CARBON COMMUNIQUE
The Principals of Carbon Farmers of Australia were invited to represent Australia and address a 3-day conference organized by the United Nations Food & Agriculture Organisation (UN FAO) as part of a campaign to have soil carbon accepted as a class of offset credits tradable on the world’s emissions markets.
At the Conservation Agriculture Carbon Offset Consultation –held in West Lafayette, Indiana, USA, 28-30 October 2008 – 84 delegates from 14 nations agreed to a communiqué calling for the governments of the world to take steps on soil carbon trading.
This was the second of a series of ‘consultations’ run by the UN FAO prior to the InterGovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) meeting in Copenhagen in 2009.The first was held in Rome in July, 2008. The UN FAO is determined to put a strong case for changing many of the Kyoto rules that preclude soil carbon’s engagement in trade.
The month before, 181 countries attending the High-Level Conference on World Food Security: the Challenges of Climate Change and Bioenergy, convened by UN FAO, 3-5 June, 2008, called for farmers to be given access to the billions of dollars coursing through the world’s carbon markets. "It is essential to … increase the resilience of present food production systems ... We urge governments to create opportunities to enable the world's smallholder farmers …. to participate in, and benefit from financial mechanisms and investment flows to support climate change adaptation, mitigation and technology development…”
The CFA is seeking to have Australia more deeply involved in the United Nation’s FAO soil carbon campaign.
WHO is Carbon Farmers of Australia (CFA)?
Carbon Farmers of Australia (CFA) is the commercial arm of the Carbon Coalition Against Global Warming (the Carbon Coalition) , a farmers' lobby that promotes increasing soil carbon levels as a solution to declining soil health and farm profits, and the effects of Climate Change. Active members include farmers, agronomists, scientists, educators, entrepreneurs and extension officers. The Coalition has conducted an awareness-raising campaign in the media and members have addressed more than 200 gatherings in Australia, New Zealand and the United States. The Coalition’s members have appeared before and made submissions to many government enquiries and lobbied individual politicians. When Prime Minister Kevin Rudd announced an enquiry into soil carbon in early 2008, The Land newspaper declared that the Coalition had “single-handedly barnstormed the issue onto the national agenda.” A Coalition delegation visited the USA in 2006 and consulted with leaders of the 3 Presidential partnerships of States addressing terrestrial carbon sequestration. It also secured the first order for Australian agricultural soil carbon from the Chicago Climate Exchange. To encourage more collaboration between scientists and farmers in research projects, the Coalition, in collaboration with Catchment Management Authorities, has staged a series of 4 “Soil Science Summits” to promote knowledge exchange between farmers and graziers and leading soil scientists. The CFA has now staged 2 annual Carbon Farming Conferences. Most recently they represented Australia at the United Nation’s Food & Agriculture Organisation’s “Conservation Farming Carbon Offset Consultation” in Indiana in October, 2008. Co-Convenors of the Coalition, Michael and Louisa Kiely, are woolgrowers from the Central West of NSW in Australia.
FOR MORE INFORMATION:
CALL (612) 6374 0329, michael@carboncoalition.com.au
Sunday, November 23, 2008
COMMUNIQUE 2008 CARBON FARMING CONFERENCE
A working group of the 2008 Carbon Farming Conference and Expo, organised by Carbon Farmers of Australia, has endorsed the statement of the UNITED NATION’S FOOD & AGRICULTURE ORGANISATION communiqué “Mitigating Climate Change” with the following statement:“We confirm:
1. that agriculture can respond immediately to sequester carbon through capture and storage.
2. that agriculture should be provided with an opportunity to support the national and global climate management effort and
3. that soil carbon should be included in voluntary offset markets.
“We support the position taken by the National Farmers Federation and those national farm lobby groups arguing for Agriculture to play a positive role in Climate Change Mitigation.
“We request that the Commonwealth Government establish a CRC for Carbon Responsive Farming.
“And we urge the United Nations’ Food & Agriculture Organisaton’s Crop & Grassland Service convene a meeting of conservation and carbon farming representatives in Australasia as part of its campaign for soil carbon offset trading.”
WORKING GROUP FROM THE CARBON FARMING EXPO & CONFERENCE 2008
Ken Bellamy, Prime Carbon
Jane Bradley, Northern Agricultural Catchments Council, WA
*Jeremy Bradley, Footprints Organic Farming
*Peter Calkin, Microsoils
Angus Campbell, Recycled Organics Unit, UNSW
Andrew Carroll, Health Support
Bryan Clark, Grain Growers Association
John Dalton, Landcare NSW
Nigel Diprose, Caidoz Consuting
John Fry, Conservation Volunteers
Gerry Gillespie, NSW Department of Environment and Climate Change
Chris Higgins, Western CMA
*Andrew Hines, Moss-Ridge Pastoral Company
*Barney Hughes, Microsoil
*Michael Kiely, Carbon Farmers of Australia
*Louisa Kiely, Carbon Farmers of Australia
Helen King, ANU
John Lawrie,Central West CMA
Honor Lee, organic farmer
Kate Lorimes-Ward, DPI NSW
Tony Lovell, Soil Carbon Australia
*Cath Marriott, Yarallah
Nicole Masters, Integrity Soils NZ
John Mills, NSW TAFE
*Hamish Munro, Cattle Council
Susan Orgill, NSW DPI
*Col Seis, “Wiona”, Gulgong
*Paul Smith, Pipinui NZ
Peter Wadewitz, Wåste Management Association
Alan Welch, Central West CMA
Tim Wiley, Department Agriculture & Food, WA
*Bob Wilson, Evergreen Farming WA
*Farmers
BACKGROUND TO UNITED NATION’S FAO SOIL CARBON COMMUNIQUE
21 November, 2008
The Principals of Carbon Farmers of Australia were invited to represent Australia and address a 3-day conference organized by the United Nations Food & Agriculture Organisation (UN FAO) as part of a campaign to have soil carbon accepted as a class of offset credits tradable on the world’s emissions markets.
At the Conservation Agriculture Carbon Offset Consultation –held in West Lafayette, Indiana, USA, 28-30 October 2008 – 84 delegates from 14 nations agreed to a communiqué calling for the governments of the world to take steps on soil carbon trading.
This was the second of a series of ‘consultations’ run by the UN FAO prior to the InerGovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) meeting in Copenhagen in 2009.The first was held in Rome in July, 2008. The UN FAO is determined to put a strong case for changing many of the Kyoto rules that preclude soil carbon’s engagement in trade.
The month before, 181 countries attending the High-Level Conference on World Food Security: the Challenges of Climate Change and Bioenergy, convened by UN FAO, 3-5 June, 2008, called for farmers to be given access to the billions of dollars coursing through the world’s carbon markets. "It is essential to … increase the resilience of present food production systems ... We urge governments to create opportunities to enable the world's smallholder farmers …. to participate in, and benefit from financial mechanisms and investment flows to support climate change adaptation, mitigation and technology development…”
The CFA is seeking to have Australia more deeply involved in the United Nation’s FAO soil carbon campaign.
Friday, November 21, 2008
Carbon Coalition addresses UN Pre-Copenhagen Soil C Forum
Soil scientists and experts from 15 nations across 5 continents were assembled in Indiana, USA to plan soil carbon's assault on the IPCC meeting in Copenhagen in 2009 where Kyoto is to be renegotiated. The Australian delegation included the convenors of the Carbon Coalition (Akubra, red jumper) who prersented a paper and moderated a session.
The meeting produced a communique which pleased meeting sponsor Theodor Friedrich, senior officer for Crop Production Systems Intensification in the FAO’s Crop and Pasture Service at the organization’s world headquarters in Rome, Italy. “We had a very good, sound gathering of experts and we had an unexpectedly high degree of coinciding views and agreement, and that allowed us to come up with a fairly punchy, clear and concise document with relevant recommendations,” he said. “I could imagine that this meeting, the outcome and the proceedings being produced might be future references to further our objective to get soil carbon into the international carbon trading markets.” (Mr Friedrich is pictured in hat and glasses.)
The UN FAO International Conservation Agriculture Carbon Offset Consultation called for soil carbon to be included as a class of offset credits for greenhouse gas emissions trading on the global market. It called for governments of the world to recognise farming that accumulates soil carbon as providing an ecosystem service and creating economic opportunities.
The meeting’s Communique states: “Conservation Agricultural systems for crops and pastures sequester carbon from the atmosphere into long-lived soil organic matter pools; they maintain and increase productivity, promote a healthy environment and strengthen rural communities. Potentially one third of annual global fossil fuel emissions could be offset by applying Conservation Agriculture.”
UN meeting recognises soil as massive carbon sink
Carbon Coalition convenors Michael & Louisa Kiely presented a report on the state of play in Australia on the morning of the first day. "I am very delighted that such a significant group of experts has assembled here from all over the world," said the FAO's Crop and Grassland leader Theodore Frederich. "This meeting produced an output which should stimulate the inclusion of appropriate agricultural land management culture linked to global mechanisms for the mitigation of climate change."
Nations represented that the FAO’s “Consultation” included Australia, Brazil, Italy, Canada, Columbia, Mexico, Germany, Denmark, South Africa, Tunisia, and the three biggest emitters who are yet to enter the Kyoto trading system, the USA, China & India.
The North Americans - now headed in the same direction as Australia - are also headed into the same quagmire called "the science": “To create working markets for farmers’ efforts to capture atmospheric carbon, we need to understand the science of how carbon acts in the soil, and the science behind no-till systems,” said Karen Scanlon, executive director of co-host Conservation Technology Information Center. “With that insight, we can quantify the effect that farmers have with specific practices and on specific soils, and create a fair compensation structure for those effects.”
The USA and Canada may have a natiional offsets market on the voluntary side, but they are yet to start unravelling the hard parts of the puzzle, as this statement reveals: "Changes in soil carbon are small... Complex chemistry dictates that the soil can only sequester a limited amount of carbon per year, and that after a certain number of years – scientists believe it is 15 to 20 years – a field reaches a plateau.
To make it even more complex, the soil’s capacity to store carbon depends on soil type, tillage system, the use of cover crops, cropping history and how much carbon it lost in the first place. Research from highly degraded soils in South America put into improved pasture showed dramatic jumps in carbon levels after five years – much higher storage than Midwestern soils in the U.S. Deep-rooted pasture plants also have the capacity to place carbon deeper into poor South American soils than annual crops do in cooler climates with richer ground. “The higher the clay content, the more capacity there is to store carbon,” said Charles Rice of Kansas State University.
In Brazil, Telmo Amado of the Federal University of Santa Maria plants corn and a deep-rooted, perennial pasture grass called deep into the soil. The result is a tremendous amount of biomass above and below the ground – a cash crop, a grazing opportunity and plenty of residue for carbon-fixing microbes.
But just growing biomass isn’t enough, says Amado. “One side of the equation is introducing this carbon,” he noted. “The other side is how we stabilize it in the soil. Both physical and chemical protections are important.”
That means protecting the soil surface with plenty of residue, maintaining soil structure by no-tilling or minimizing tillage, keeping soil microbes healthy (again through minimal soil disturbance), fertilizing crops adequately, avoiding soil compaction and rotating crops. “It’s really site-specific, and we really need to understand the crop system we’re talking about,” said Amado.
Got to Pay
Building carbon levels in the soil delivers a variety of important benefits, from improved soil quality to better water-holding capacity, higher fertility and resistance to erosion. Still, the biggest enticement to sequestering carbon will be creating markets through which farmers can sell the service they provide.
“I think what we’re really looking for as a farm organization, or society in general, is some way to reward farmers and ranchers for doing things like storing carbon and some other environmental practices,” said North Dakota farmer Dale Enerson, who serves as director of the Carbon Credit Program for the National Farmers Union in Jamestown, N.D.
The National Farmers Union has served as an aggregator of carbon credits, collecting pledges from 3,700 growers in the U.S. to sequester carbon on 4.7 million acres of cropland and rangeland and selling the bundle of carbon credits on the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX). Participating growers received an average of $1.20 per ton of sequestered carbon. Official CCX estimates for carbon sequestration range from 0.2 to 0.6 metric tons per acre on no-tilled cropland, 1 metric ton per acre on long-term grassland (such as CRP ground) and 0.12 to 0.52 metric tons on rangeland with enhanced management practices.
In a pioneering carbon offset trading program in Alberta, Canada, 47 percent of the offsets are from agricultural land. On the Chicago Climate Exchange, 25.52 percent of the offsets have been purchased from farmers. In Canada, provincial carbon offset trading in Alberta and Saskatchewan are paving the way for nationwide caps on industrial greenhouse gas emissions that will kick in on Jan. 1, 2010. Capping emissions will boost the market for tradable carbon offset credits, and agriculture wants to be part of the package.
“I think what we’re really looking for as a farm organization, or society in general, is some way to reward farmers and ranchers for doing things like storing carbon and some other environmental practices,” said North Dakota farmer Dale Enerson, who serves as director of the Carbon Credit Program for the National Farmers Union in Jamestown, N.D.
The National Farmers Union has served as an aggregator of carbon credits, collecting pledges from 3,700 growers in the U.S. to sequester carbon on 4.7 million acres of cropland and rangeland and selling the bundle of carbon credits on the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX). Participating growers received an average of $1.20 per ton of sequestered carbon. Official CCX estimates for carbon sequestration range from 0.2 to 0.6 metric tons per acre on no-tilled cropland, 1 metric ton per acre on long-term grassland (such as CRP ground) and 0.12 to 0.52 metric tons on rangeland with enhanced management practices.
In a pioneering carbon offset trading program in Alberta, Canada, 47 percent of the offsets are from agricultural land. On the Chicago Climate Exchange, 25.52 percent of the offsets have been purchased from farmers. In Canada, provincial carbon offset trading in Alberta and Saskatchewan are paving the way for nationwide caps on industrial greenhouse gas emissions that will kick in on Jan. 1, 2010. Capping emissions will boost the market for tradable carbon offset credits, and agriculture wants to be part of the package.
Preparing soil carbon offset credits for a full-scale, regulation-driven market will require policymakers to sort out an array of issues, ranging from how long the contracts should be, who owns the carbon (the operator or the landowner), how practices are verified, and how to handle situations in which an operator releases carbon by disturbing the ground in violation of his contract.“These cross-cutting issues can be worked out by working together,” says Don McCabe, an Ontario farmer who serves as vice president of the Soil Conservation Council of Canada, “because at the end of the day, it’s the same science. We’re starting to see the ball running down the hill. We’ve got to keep it rolling.”
Though voluntary markets have kept the value of a ton of sequestered carbon low – prices on the Chicago Climate Exchange have ranged from 90 cents to $7.50 per metric ton, and Alberta prices have ranged from $6.00 to $12.00 – McCabe believes a free market in which buyers are motivated by regulatory emissions caps could reach $65.00 per metric ton by 2020.
That would be music to the ears of farmers – and the participants in the October meeting. “There has to be a fair-price incentive,” said Rattan Lal, director of the Carbon Management and Sequestration Institute at The Ohio State University, “and $2 or $3 or $4 per acre in the market isn’t going to do it.”
The meeting produced a communique which pleased meeting sponsor Theodor Friedrich, senior officer for Crop Production Systems Intensification in the FAO’s Crop and Pasture Service at the organization’s world headquarters in Rome, Italy. “We had a very good, sound gathering of experts and we had an unexpectedly high degree of coinciding views and agreement, and that allowed us to come up with a fairly punchy, clear and concise document with relevant recommendations,” he said. “I could imagine that this meeting, the outcome and the proceedings being produced might be future references to further our objective to get soil carbon into the international carbon trading markets.” (Mr Friedrich is pictured in hat and glasses.)
The UN FAO International Conservation Agriculture Carbon Offset Consultation called for soil carbon to be included as a class of offset credits for greenhouse gas emissions trading on the global market. It called for governments of the world to recognise farming that accumulates soil carbon as providing an ecosystem service and creating economic opportunities.
The meeting’s Communique states: “Conservation Agricultural systems for crops and pastures sequester carbon from the atmosphere into long-lived soil organic matter pools; they maintain and increase productivity, promote a healthy environment and strengthen rural communities. Potentially one third of annual global fossil fuel emissions could be offset by applying Conservation Agriculture.”
UN meeting recognises soil as massive carbon sink
Carbon Coalition convenors Michael & Louisa Kiely presented a report on the state of play in Australia on the morning of the first day. "I am very delighted that such a significant group of experts has assembled here from all over the world," said the FAO's Crop and Grassland leader Theodore Frederich. "This meeting produced an output which should stimulate the inclusion of appropriate agricultural land management culture linked to global mechanisms for the mitigation of climate change."
Nations represented that the FAO’s “Consultation” included Australia, Brazil, Italy, Canada, Columbia, Mexico, Germany, Denmark, South Africa, Tunisia, and the three biggest emitters who are yet to enter the Kyoto trading system, the USA, China & India.
The North Americans - now headed in the same direction as Australia - are also headed into the same quagmire called "the science": “To create working markets for farmers’ efforts to capture atmospheric carbon, we need to understand the science of how carbon acts in the soil, and the science behind no-till systems,” said Karen Scanlon, executive director of co-host Conservation Technology Information Center. “With that insight, we can quantify the effect that farmers have with specific practices and on specific soils, and create a fair compensation structure for those effects.”
The USA and Canada may have a natiional offsets market on the voluntary side, but they are yet to start unravelling the hard parts of the puzzle, as this statement reveals: "Changes in soil carbon are small... Complex chemistry dictates that the soil can only sequester a limited amount of carbon per year, and that after a certain number of years – scientists believe it is 15 to 20 years – a field reaches a plateau.
To make it even more complex, the soil’s capacity to store carbon depends on soil type, tillage system, the use of cover crops, cropping history and how much carbon it lost in the first place. Research from highly degraded soils in South America put into improved pasture showed dramatic jumps in carbon levels after five years – much higher storage than Midwestern soils in the U.S. Deep-rooted pasture plants also have the capacity to place carbon deeper into poor South American soils than annual crops do in cooler climates with richer ground. “The higher the clay content, the more capacity there is to store carbon,” said Charles Rice of Kansas State University.
In Brazil, Telmo Amado of the Federal University of Santa Maria plants corn and a deep-rooted, perennial pasture grass called deep into the soil. The result is a tremendous amount of biomass above and below the ground – a cash crop, a grazing opportunity and plenty of residue for carbon-fixing microbes.
But just growing biomass isn’t enough, says Amado. “One side of the equation is introducing this carbon,” he noted. “The other side is how we stabilize it in the soil. Both physical and chemical protections are important.”
That means protecting the soil surface with plenty of residue, maintaining soil structure by no-tilling or minimizing tillage, keeping soil microbes healthy (again through minimal soil disturbance), fertilizing crops adequately, avoiding soil compaction and rotating crops. “It’s really site-specific, and we really need to understand the crop system we’re talking about,” said Amado.
Got to Pay
Building carbon levels in the soil delivers a variety of important benefits, from improved soil quality to better water-holding capacity, higher fertility and resistance to erosion. Still, the biggest enticement to sequestering carbon will be creating markets through which farmers can sell the service they provide.
“I think what we’re really looking for as a farm organization, or society in general, is some way to reward farmers and ranchers for doing things like storing carbon and some other environmental practices,” said North Dakota farmer Dale Enerson, who serves as director of the Carbon Credit Program for the National Farmers Union in Jamestown, N.D.
The National Farmers Union has served as an aggregator of carbon credits, collecting pledges from 3,700 growers in the U.S. to sequester carbon on 4.7 million acres of cropland and rangeland and selling the bundle of carbon credits on the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX). Participating growers received an average of $1.20 per ton of sequestered carbon. Official CCX estimates for carbon sequestration range from 0.2 to 0.6 metric tons per acre on no-tilled cropland, 1 metric ton per acre on long-term grassland (such as CRP ground) and 0.12 to 0.52 metric tons on rangeland with enhanced management practices.
In a pioneering carbon offset trading program in Alberta, Canada, 47 percent of the offsets are from agricultural land. On the Chicago Climate Exchange, 25.52 percent of the offsets have been purchased from farmers. In Canada, provincial carbon offset trading in Alberta and Saskatchewan are paving the way for nationwide caps on industrial greenhouse gas emissions that will kick in on Jan. 1, 2010. Capping emissions will boost the market for tradable carbon offset credits, and agriculture wants to be part of the package.
“I think what we’re really looking for as a farm organization, or society in general, is some way to reward farmers and ranchers for doing things like storing carbon and some other environmental practices,” said North Dakota farmer Dale Enerson, who serves as director of the Carbon Credit Program for the National Farmers Union in Jamestown, N.D.
The National Farmers Union has served as an aggregator of carbon credits, collecting pledges from 3,700 growers in the U.S. to sequester carbon on 4.7 million acres of cropland and rangeland and selling the bundle of carbon credits on the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX). Participating growers received an average of $1.20 per ton of sequestered carbon. Official CCX estimates for carbon sequestration range from 0.2 to 0.6 metric tons per acre on no-tilled cropland, 1 metric ton per acre on long-term grassland (such as CRP ground) and 0.12 to 0.52 metric tons on rangeland with enhanced management practices.
In a pioneering carbon offset trading program in Alberta, Canada, 47 percent of the offsets are from agricultural land. On the Chicago Climate Exchange, 25.52 percent of the offsets have been purchased from farmers. In Canada, provincial carbon offset trading in Alberta and Saskatchewan are paving the way for nationwide caps on industrial greenhouse gas emissions that will kick in on Jan. 1, 2010. Capping emissions will boost the market for tradable carbon offset credits, and agriculture wants to be part of the package.
Preparing soil carbon offset credits for a full-scale, regulation-driven market will require policymakers to sort out an array of issues, ranging from how long the contracts should be, who owns the carbon (the operator or the landowner), how practices are verified, and how to handle situations in which an operator releases carbon by disturbing the ground in violation of his contract.“These cross-cutting issues can be worked out by working together,” says Don McCabe, an Ontario farmer who serves as vice president of the Soil Conservation Council of Canada, “because at the end of the day, it’s the same science. We’re starting to see the ball running down the hill. We’ve got to keep it rolling.”
Though voluntary markets have kept the value of a ton of sequestered carbon low – prices on the Chicago Climate Exchange have ranged from 90 cents to $7.50 per metric ton, and Alberta prices have ranged from $6.00 to $12.00 – McCabe believes a free market in which buyers are motivated by regulatory emissions caps could reach $65.00 per metric ton by 2020.
That would be music to the ears of farmers – and the participants in the October meeting. “There has to be a fair-price incentive,” said Rattan Lal, director of the Carbon Management and Sequestration Institute at The Ohio State University, “and $2 or $3 or $4 per acre in the market isn’t going to do it.”
Wednesday, November 05, 2008
The Audacity To Hope
Today a black man became President of the United States.
Unthinkable.
Until it happened.
Obama wrote a book called The Audacity To Hope.
We too have the audacity to hope. We hope for the day that soil carbon will be traded and farmers paid fairly for what they grow,
We hope for the day when rising soil carbon levels start returning the soils to health, returning native species to the landscape, and returning hope to rural communities.
We hope for that day because it will also be the day when farmers wlll start soaking up the excess CO2 that is troubling our climate and threatening our childrens' and grandchildrens' futures.
We hope for better times for everyone. Because we know what we can do if allowed to do it.
Some Sanity in Canberra - only in the Times
Brian Toohey, in The Canberra Times 3/11/2008:.
"Just as surprisingly, the government is ignoring attractive options to encourage rural Australians to play a major role in reducing emissions. Due to worries about asking farmers to buy pollution permits to cover emissions from livestock and land cultivation, the rural sector will not be included in the initial stage of the pollution reduction scheme. But this overlooks the positive side which would let farmers make money from selling offset credits for storing carbon in soil and vegetation. Ultimately, these opportunities could result in large cuts to Australian emissions in a relatively painless manner.
"In the final report of his Climate Change Review, released in the September, Professor Ross Garnaut saw tremendous potential for absorbing carbon in soils and plants. The report said, "The comprehensive restoration of degraded low value grazing country in arid Australia ... would remove up to the equivalent of 250 million tonnes of carbon dioxide per year." That’s about half the nation’s present emissions. Garnaut is not suggesting that land restoration on this scale will fully eventuate, but achieving half the potential gain would make a significant contribution to the reducing emissions.
"In discussing a related approach, Garnaut says carbon farming — involving the planting of suitable trees or other vegetation — could absorb over 140 million tonnes of carbon dioxide a year. He says that a recent study shows farmers could earn up to $100 per hectare more a year than from current land use by to selling carbon offsets, even if a pollution permit price were only $20 a tonne. One advantage of carbon farming is that there are no costs for harvesting and transporting timber. Nor does it matter if the land is in a remote area, or producing only marginal returns from its current usage.
"Moving down this path would also help tackle problems of soil salinity and erosion, as well giving farmers a chance to improve their income while abandoning agricultural practices that damage the land. It would also make it easier to meet stricter emission targets. To achieve these benefits, however, the government needs to start now — not in a decade’s time —on rolling out demonstration programs to introduce farmers and land care groups to the opportunities. "
"Just as surprisingly, the government is ignoring attractive options to encourage rural Australians to play a major role in reducing emissions. Due to worries about asking farmers to buy pollution permits to cover emissions from livestock and land cultivation, the rural sector will not be included in the initial stage of the pollution reduction scheme. But this overlooks the positive side which would let farmers make money from selling offset credits for storing carbon in soil and vegetation. Ultimately, these opportunities could result in large cuts to Australian emissions in a relatively painless manner.
"In the final report of his Climate Change Review, released in the September, Professor Ross Garnaut saw tremendous potential for absorbing carbon in soils and plants. The report said, "The comprehensive restoration of degraded low value grazing country in arid Australia ... would remove up to the equivalent of 250 million tonnes of carbon dioxide per year." That’s about half the nation’s present emissions. Garnaut is not suggesting that land restoration on this scale will fully eventuate, but achieving half the potential gain would make a significant contribution to the reducing emissions.
"In discussing a related approach, Garnaut says carbon farming — involving the planting of suitable trees or other vegetation — could absorb over 140 million tonnes of carbon dioxide a year. He says that a recent study shows farmers could earn up to $100 per hectare more a year than from current land use by to selling carbon offsets, even if a pollution permit price were only $20 a tonne. One advantage of carbon farming is that there are no costs for harvesting and transporting timber. Nor does it matter if the land is in a remote area, or producing only marginal returns from its current usage.
"Moving down this path would also help tackle problems of soil salinity and erosion, as well giving farmers a chance to improve their income while abandoning agricultural practices that damage the land. It would also make it easier to meet stricter emission targets. To achieve these benefits, however, the government needs to start now — not in a decade’s time —on rolling out demonstration programs to introduce farmers and land care groups to the opportunities. "
Tax farmers, don't pay them for soil carbon: Australia Institute
Energy and environmental lobbyists want farmers shut out of the biggest commodity market in history - and instead to pay a new tax to punish them for growing cattle and sheep.
Soil Carbon Trading was attacked recently in an Australia Institute Paper by energy expert Dr Hugh Saddler and former AGO executive and ANU Masters of Environment & Society student Helen King.
The report has at least three fundamental flaws:
Fundamental Flaw #1: Dr Saddler says farmers cannot measure the emissions from their animals or crops accurately: "To get an accurate estimate of them, you've actually got to go and make the measurements of what's actually being emitted from a cow or from a paddock of wheat and that's very, very costly and complex to do and will always be, so its not a matter of getting the science better," he said.
Dr Saddler, who is an energy industry expert, would know that measurement is not the problem, says according to Tony Lovell of SOil Carbon Australia. “In the energy industry they don’t ‘measure’ the amounts of carbon released by a coal-burning power station. They would have to capture all its emissions, separate off the GHG's, and weigh them - 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Forever. They do not do this - they use regular sampling and apply generally accepted formulas to come up with reasonable estimates of the emissions.”
There is next to no "measurement" involved in this whole process - but there is a lot of "estimation". Understanding the difference between these two terms is absolutely critical.
Fundamental Flaw #2: The so-called fact that “farming contributes about 16% of Australia’s emissions” Is still widely believed, but is now out of date. Ruminant numbers are not the cause of methane increases, according to research by the Food and Agriculture Organisation, a United Nations agency. “Since 1999 atmospheric methane concentrations have leveled off while the world population of ruminants has increased at an accelerated rate,” it reports at http://www-naweb.iaea.org/nafa/aph/stories/2008-atmospheric-methane.html
“The role of ruminants in greenhouse gases may be less significant than originally thought, with other sources and sinks playing a larger role in global methane accounting,” says the FAO.
In 2003 the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported that the concentration of the methane in the atmosphere was leveling off at the 1999 level. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change acknowledged this in 2007, with “emissions being equivalent to removals.” Yet the number of new ruminant animals rose from 9m to 16m per year in the same period.
Fundamental Flaw #3: Taking the Australian Greenhouse Office’s National Greenhouse Gas Inventory as a reliable guide to agriculture’s emissions. The gaps in the data sets used to make decisions on the potential for Australian soils to emit and sequester carbon have been widely acknowledged. I have an email from a former senior AGO executive admitting that the AGO was aware of the gaps all along.
Australia is heading in the opposite direction to the rest of the world on soil carbon: After attending a global gathering of soil carbon experts organised by the FAO last week, I can tell you that Australian farmers are world leaders in soil carbon sequestration. But our Government and our ‘experts’ are headed backwards while the FAO and the rest of the world are seeking to include soil carbon in the global markets.
Dr Saddler and Ms King (a former AGO senior executive and Masters student in “Environment and Society” at ANU) have been invited to the 2008 Carbon Farming Expo & Conference, on 18-19 November, at Orange NSW.
Soil Carbon Trading was attacked recently in an Australia Institute Paper by energy expert Dr Hugh Saddler and former AGO executive and ANU Masters of Environment & Society student Helen King.
The report has at least three fundamental flaws:
Fundamental Flaw #1: Dr Saddler says farmers cannot measure the emissions from their animals or crops accurately: "To get an accurate estimate of them, you've actually got to go and make the measurements of what's actually being emitted from a cow or from a paddock of wheat and that's very, very costly and complex to do and will always be, so its not a matter of getting the science better," he said.
Dr Saddler, who is an energy industry expert, would know that measurement is not the problem, says according to Tony Lovell of SOil Carbon Australia. “In the energy industry they don’t ‘measure’ the amounts of carbon released by a coal-burning power station. They would have to capture all its emissions, separate off the GHG's, and weigh them - 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Forever. They do not do this - they use regular sampling and apply generally accepted formulas to come up with reasonable estimates of the emissions.”
There is next to no "measurement" involved in this whole process - but there is a lot of "estimation". Understanding the difference between these two terms is absolutely critical.
Fundamental Flaw #2: The so-called fact that “farming contributes about 16% of Australia’s emissions” Is still widely believed, but is now out of date. Ruminant numbers are not the cause of methane increases, according to research by the Food and Agriculture Organisation, a United Nations agency. “Since 1999 atmospheric methane concentrations have leveled off while the world population of ruminants has increased at an accelerated rate,” it reports at http://www-naweb.iaea.org/nafa/aph/stories/2008-atmospheric-methane.html
“The role of ruminants in greenhouse gases may be less significant than originally thought, with other sources and sinks playing a larger role in global methane accounting,” says the FAO.
In 2003 the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported that the concentration of the methane in the atmosphere was leveling off at the 1999 level. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change acknowledged this in 2007, with “emissions being equivalent to removals.” Yet the number of new ruminant animals rose from 9m to 16m per year in the same period.
Fundamental Flaw #3: Taking the Australian Greenhouse Office’s National Greenhouse Gas Inventory as a reliable guide to agriculture’s emissions. The gaps in the data sets used to make decisions on the potential for Australian soils to emit and sequester carbon have been widely acknowledged. I have an email from a former senior AGO executive admitting that the AGO was aware of the gaps all along.
Australia is heading in the opposite direction to the rest of the world on soil carbon: After attending a global gathering of soil carbon experts organised by the FAO last week, I can tell you that Australian farmers are world leaders in soil carbon sequestration. But our Government and our ‘experts’ are headed backwards while the FAO and the rest of the world are seeking to include soil carbon in the global markets.
Dr Saddler and Ms King (a former AGO senior executive and Masters student in “Environment and Society” at ANU) have been invited to the 2008 Carbon Farming Expo & Conference, on 18-19 November, at Orange NSW.
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