Did you attend a Soil Carbon Mythbusters Seminar recently?

If so, do you have notes, slides, handouts or recordings of what was said?

We were unable to attend and would like to know which myths need busting.

Please contact michael@carboncoalition.com.au



PS. Remember, when it comes to snake oil, the Carbon Coalition only uses Top Quality Snakes!

(Image courtesy DPI)

Is the answer in an ecology textbook?

We could be on the verge of a breakthrough in soil C measurement - which is the only real blockage we need to clear before trading proper can start. We start with a question: Why did Mother Nature make soil carbon so slippery? In other words, why does soil carbon exhibit such spatial and temporal variance? In the case of soil carbon, the answer to the question is “because it does”, the Aristotelian response. It is the nature of soil carbon to be like soil carbon. This is not so silly. What is the nature of soil carbon? It is an ecological phenomenon. It exists in context. It is not a linear substance. It is communal, growing through the combining of many elements and forces. So why, if we took 100 core samples in a paddock, would we have 100 different carbon scores, some of them wildly different? We look for the answer in ecological science. A basic text book - Basic Ecology, Eugene P. Odum, Director, Institute of Ecology, Georgia State University, 1983* - leads us to the following: Carbon's behaviour in a paddock could be an emergent property of a larger functional whole than the individual soil sample.
Here's what Odum says about it:
• “AS components/subsets are combined to produce larger functional wholes, new properties emerge that were not present at the level below… An emergent property at an ecological level cannot be predicted from the study of the components of that level.”
• “Often attributes become less complex and less variable as move from small to large…”
• “Because homestatic mechanisms (checks and balances, forces and counterforces) operate throughout, the amplitude of oscillations tends to be reduced, as smaller units function within larger units. Statistically variance of the whole is less than the sum of the variance of the parts. For example, the rate of photosynthesis of a forest community is less variable than that of individual leaves or trees within the community, because when one part slows down, another may speed up to compensate.”
These concepts provide a way forward for the soil carbon measurement issue: Soil core samples are capable of exhibiting dramatic variance. However this does not mean the whole soil 'individual' is oscillating as violently as the individual samples.
In fact, the variance could be explained as the soil’s way of achieving equilibrium for the moment, like the trees mentioned by Odum. That equilibrium is the true carbon score. A single value that represents the entire soil unit.

How this can be calculated is currently beyond me.

IS THIS JUST A WACKY IDEA? No. Steiner and Lovelock believe it.

The Russians first saw soil as something more than a medium for holding plants up and delivering chemicals to the roots. The scientific basis of soil science as a natural science was established by the Russian V.V. Dokuchaev. “Previously, soil had been considered a product of physicochemical transformations of rocks, a dead substrate from which plants derive nutritious mineral elements. Dokuchaev saw soil as “a natural body with complex processes taking place within it”.
Alexei I. MOROZOV took a further step in a paper called “Soil as a polis of fungi” – making the statement that soil biota is the engine room of the living entity that is soil: Soil biota is “essentially organised, and supreme fungi operate it.” In addition to their role in decomposing litter, the fungi provide “a transport of substances, production of bio-active metabolites, the creation of biophile supply and solid frame of soil”.
Soil is not a simple reactor, but a "home" with multifunctional, hierarchical biota, which is managed by fungi. The hyphae form “nets” (networks). Morozov says new thinking must be applied to creating new models of soil dynamics, with soil as an “integral unit,” which is "stitched" with material bonds. Soil has the features of single whole organism.
Finally Professor Lal believes that soil 'is a living entity'.

We have more exciting news on this new field of opportunity for soil science coming soon!

*Borrowed from David Marsh and long overdue. Thanks David.

Congratulations Matt Cawood & Christine Jones

Congratulations Matt Cawood & Christine Jones

Not everyone 'gets' soil carbon. A lot of people say they do, but they probably think it means biochar. After all, that is easy to understand. Soil carbon is a complex story. Editors and Ministers don't have much time for explanations. If you can't get it over in three sentences, they think, I won't be able to. So Matt Cawood's two page spread in the Rural Press newspapers this week - featuring the word "Conundrum" in the headline - is a triumph of persistence and good journalism.
The scary thing about this fungi/humus connection is that it seems to have come as a surprise to most of the professional defenders of the traditional ways.
Congratulations to Christine for articulating the Carbon Pathway so powerfully and leading the way to a new conceptual understanding of the dynamics of soil/plant relationships. She will be 'justified' on May 22 when she holds a Managing the Carbon Cycle Conference at which the first cheques for her Australian Soil Carbon Accreditation Scheme are handed over to the farmers involved. Holding it in Canberra makes such a statement to the official science establishment who threw the entire weight of their institutional disapproval against her and failed to stop this amazing woman - who, if my mate Peter Andrews deserves an "Australian Story", I'm sure he'll agree she deserves two.
We will give details about the May 22 Conference when they come to hand.

Now Al Gore Gets It!

Al Gore recently testified to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, urging Congress to act before the next round of global negotiations on climate change in December in Copenhagen, Denmark. In his list of fixes for global warming, former Vice President Gore included this: "The addition of sinks including those from soils, principally from farmlands and grazing lands with appropriate methodologies and accounting. Farmers and ranchers in the U.S. and around the world need to know that they can be part of the solution." Rattan Lal, who heads Ohio State University's Carbon Management and Sequestration Center, worries that agriculture could be left out of a US cap-and-trade bill. He liked Gore's comments, according to Successful Farming magazine: "I hope that somebody was listening," he said.

A native of India, Lal has spent his life working to improve soil fertility, in the U.S. and in developing nations suffering from soil degradation.

He has a global understanding of agriculture's potential to literally clean the planet's atmosphere of a big fraction of man-made carbon pollution.

It would be tragic -- perhaps fatal -- for the human race if Congress and international negotiators of the next global warming treaty ignore scientists like Lal.

They also should hear from farmers like Gale Lush in Nebraska and Kevin Struss in Kansas. Both are no-tillers who have sold carbon credits. They are true environmentalists, who know the ecology of their chunk of the planet.

If policy-makers don't pay attention to these experts on soil, efforts to combat global warming are likely to fail. There are some really bad ideas out there. A column in the New York Times last winter praised scientists at the Universities of Washington and California who want to capture carbon in crop waste, bale it up, and dump it in the ocean. That's an exceptionally stupid way to mine the fertility of soils.

Instead, Al Gore's common sense needs to be heard. Katy Ziegler Thomas, a lobbyist for National Farmers Union, is doing her part, sending his comments to members of Congress. "That is fantastic for us," she says. "We're working it hard."

You can help, too, by sending your own thoughts on capturing carbon to a senator or representative.

A cap-and-trade law that includes agriculture in the right way might result in payments that are bigger than your direct payments from the commodity program. You could brag to your liberal city cousins about carbon payments. And you could say you're a step ahead of Al Gore.

A BIG 'THANK YOU' AND PLEASE KEEP THOSE PETITIONERS ROLLING IN

Thank you to everyone who 'signed' or had someone else to 'sign' the Collaborative Science In Agriculture petition. The Minister's "minder" has acknowledged receipt of our petition. We need to keep up the pressure on the decision-makers about "Collaborative Science In Agriculture". We managed to collect 220 individual names and addresses in the short time we had...plus representation for more than 6000 clients and members of organisations who agreed to sign.

If you can pass the petition request on to others, you would be doing the Soil Carbon cause (and the cause of our ultimate survival as a community) a great service.

What do we want people to do?

1. Read the brief submission to the Minister For Agriculture Tony Burke below.
2. Email michael@carboncoalition.com.au
3. In the email, tell me they agree to having their agreement with the statement communicated to the Minister. This is instead of a 'signature'.
4. Could they also include their name, the name of their property, profession or organisation, and its location.

Thank You

Collaborative Science in Agriculture
A Brief Submission on Maximising Return on Investment in Soil Carbon Research

Statement of the Opportunity: The Minister for Agriculture has announced a $20 million investment in research into Soil Carbon, for which we are very grateful. The Soil Carbon Movement has long petitioned for this outcome, and we are anxious that Soil Carbon be given the opportunity to perform to its potential. That justice is seen to be done is the key to the Farm Community’s acceptance of the outcomes, given that the economic viability of many farm enterprises will be determined by these outcomes.

Context: The controversy over the sequestration potential of Australian soils is based on a methodological flaw in the National Carbon Accounting Scheme which saw gaps in the data skew the results and lead to the conclusion that Australian soils were more likely to be a source of emissions than a sink. The gaps in the data – the absence of new land management techniques that sequester carbon in soil – have been acknowledged by a former Australian Greenhouse Office executive. Unfortunately, the consensus opinion was formed before the ‘key gaps in the data’ were filled. Those gaps are still waiting to be filled – even after the projects that you announced this week are complete. The common belief led policymakers to see Agriculture as ‘problem’ rather than ‘opportunity’. Funding for trials was denied. Meanwhile farmers were recording rates of soil carbon increases 10 to 100-times faster than official science (by focussing on soil biology). Official science has also started to record higher rates of sequestration than the models, based on incomplete data, will allow.

Core Issue: A farmer could see the gaps in the NCAS research at a glance because he knows what to look for. Scientists are experts in Science, not in emerging land management practices. In a period of rapid change, they might construct methodologies that potentially do not reflect practical reality. This in turn could compromise the research. Where the outcome of this research underpins public policy that will affect the financial well-being of an entire industry, it becomes a critical issue.

Core Proposition: We recommend that a collaborative approach to science in Agriculture be pursued.

The professional farmer or grazier can help identify the landscape issues that should inform the construction of the study. The farmer in turn will learn more about scientific method. The Carbon Coalition has been developing these types of relationships for three years, engaging scientists and practitioners in five knowledge-sharing events, two of which have been National Carbon Farming Conferences. The scientists involved have included Prof. Richard Eckard, Prof. Peter Grace, Prof. Alex McBratney, Dr Jeff Baldock, Dr Brian Murphy, Dr Annette Cowie, Dr Greg Chapman, and Dr Yin Chan, who has long championed the capacity of Australian soils to sequester.


Collaborative Science in Agriculture is not novel. It was a finding of the 2020 Summit’s Rural Stream: "New participatory approaches to research, including on-ground research extension, are needed … The most effective way of generating on-ground change is by having producers actively involved in participatory approaches to research since ‘farmers are often first order innovators’." A Senate Committee made the same plea: “The committee urges those researching and investigating climate change adaptation and mitigation opportunities and risks to fully engage with those in the agricultural community.”


We believe your announcement this week of nine key projects, the strategic nature of these studies, and their timing makes it imperative that you engage farmers in the process.


Recommendations:

1. That the Minister requests the CSIRO, which has overarching responsibility for the nine projects, to engage members of the Carbon Farming community in discussions about the methodology chosen for the studies.
2. That the scientists listed above be consulted as to the sincere collaborative intention of the Carbon Farmers. And that the credibility of the studies in question would be guaranteed by such transparency.

Request: That a meeting be arranged as soon as possible between the relevant people at the Ministry, the CSIRO and a delegation of Carbon Farmers.

Thank you.

Michael Kiely
Convenor
(and attached signatories)

Crawling towards the Soil Carbon Solution - a new paradigm

"We are actually going to have to decrease the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere." With these words, Dr James Hansen knocked at the door of the new paradigm - the new candidate for the title 'DOMINANT PARADIGM'. Hansen is the most senior climate scientist to come anywhere near the idea that it is the existing or historic atmospheric CO2-e (or the 'airborne fraction') that is causing the climate catastrophes - and that EXTRACTION is the first job.
Hansen has been Director since 1981 of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies. He first alerted the world to Climate Change in 1988 and defied President George W. Bush's attempt to re-write science to suit politics. So he is a pioneer, but he is still only on the threshold of the idea that PHOTOSYNTHESIS is the only process that can extract (that we know of).
His solution is a change in the way we consumer energy. So he hasn't made the necessary distinction between historic and future emissions. Changing to alternative energy sources can only influence FUTURE emissions. Not those of the PAST.

PICTURED: SOIL BIOLOGY, THE NEW PARADIGM FOR SOIL CARBON STUDIES? (A LIVELY NEMATODE CAPTURED DURING FILMING FOR ABCTV'S LANDLINE ON 'UAMBY')

For those interested in following the upcoming BATTLE OF THE PARADIGMS, get a copy of Thomas Kuhn's book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. It is short and easy to read. It describes how Scientists live in a Self-Regulating Community governed by a set of Rules that enforce a way of seeing reality. This "Reality" is called the Dominant Paradigm. Students are taught the Dominant Paradigm, PhD projects must fall within it, and Scientists can only publish their work if a panel of their peers pass the work as being sufficiently obedient to it. When this Paradigm meets a crisis because it confronts a problem that it cannot solve, a new candidate is sought and it is often found in a set of practices already well-established, but not recognised by the Community (Carbon Farming). At first supporters of the New Paradigm are derided and their motives questioned (so Kuhn says). There are very few resources for testing the New Paradigm, the money being spent for the most part re-proving the Old Paradigm. But one by one, important figures switch loyalties to the new Paradigm as it passes the tests. The community moves across to a new Paradigm not by persuasion but by the passing on of the Old Guard and their replacement by youth. Every field of Science goes through the inevitable cycling of paradigms, and the community fights a "political" battle between the defenders of the old and the promoters of the new. Unfortunately these processes can take years... and we don't have years to start the extraction process. How can we speed up the process?

Europe says "YES" to Soil Carbon!

The Soil Carbon Movement's message has penetrated the walls of the European Commission. Environment Commissioner Releasing a new report, Stavros Dimas said: “Properly managed soils can absorb enormous quantities of carbon from the atmosphere, buying us valuable time to reduce emissions and move towards sustainability."

The Commission says soils can play a crucial role in mitigating climate change. Europe's soils are an enormous carbon reservoir, containing around 75 billion tonnes, and poor management can have serious consequences: a failure to protect Europe's remaining peat bogs, for example, would release the same amount of carbon as an additional 40 million cars on Europe's roads. The report describes itself as 'a synthesis of the best available information on the links between soil and climate change.' It says sequestering carbon in soils is "cost competitive and immediately available, requires no new or unproven technologies, and has a mitigation potential comparable to that of any other sector of the economy."

The Commission - a new entry into the soil carbon arena - is subject to the same misunderstanding most people exhibit in the early stages of their education. "Most soils in Europe are accumulating carbon: soils under grassland and forest act as sinks, sequestering up to 100 million tonnes of carbon per year, although soils under arable land act as net emitters, releasing between 10 and 40 million tonnes of carbon per year. Carbon is lost from soils when grasslands, managed forest lands or native ecosystems are converted to croplands, a process that is slowly reversed when cropland is converted back."

This mistaken view compounds the anxiety of the Commission's reporters: "Some of the report's conclusions make for uncomfortable reading. As the world population continues to grow, ever greater areas of grasslands and forests are converted to croplands, and soils that are currently carbon sinks will turn into net emitters. The most effective strategy to prevent global soil carbon loss would be to halt these land conversions – but this may conflict with growing global demand for food."

The Europeans have discovered Carbon Farming: "The report underlines how agricultural practices can be improved to minimise carbon losses, at the level of the crop and the crop residues, and by ensuring that soils are protected against water and rain with a permanent vegetation cover, less intrusive ploughing techniques and less machinery. Such practices could sequester between 50 and 100 million tonnes of carbon annually in European soils.

A lack of EU-wide data on soil carbon and soil carbon trends is all-too-familiar to Australians - and points to the data issue as generic. The whole world has neglected soils.

The Commission presented a legislative proposal to protect European soils in 2006, with support from the European Parliament, but opposition from five Member States means that the proposal is currently blocked in Council. (The bastards are everywhere.)

Report "Review of existing information on the interrelations between soil and climate change":

Soil and Climate Change conference (June 2008): http://ec.europa.eu/environment/soil/conf_en.htm

Soil web pages on Europa: http://ec.europa.eu/environment/soil/index_en.htm

THE CARBON COALITION NEEDS YOUR HELP - URGENTLY

Please read the text below and decide if you can agree to be a "Signatory" of the petition to Minister Burke, seeking to avoid the mistakes of the past with the $20m to be sent on soil carbon research. If you agree, simply email the address on this link michael@carboncoalition.com.au, supplying the following information: your assent, property/organisation name, and your location. If you are an office bearer in a relevant organisation.

Collaborative Science in Agriculture
A Brief Submission on Maximising Return on Investment in Soil Carbon Research

Statement of the Opportunity: The Minister for Agriculture has announced a $20 million investment in research into Soil Carbon, for which we are very grateful. The Soil Carbon Movement has long petitioned for this outcome, and we are anxious that Soil Carbon be given the opportunity to perform to its potential. That justice is seen to be done is the key to the Farm Community’s acceptance of the outcomes, given that the economic viability of many farm enterprises will be determined by these outcomes.

Context: The controversy over the sequestration potential of Australian soils is based on a methodological flaw in the National Carbon Accounting Scheme which saw gaps in the data skew the results and lead to the conclusion that Australian soils were more likely to be a source of emissions than a sink. The gaps in the data – the absence of new land management techniques that sequester carbon in soil – have been acknowledged by a former Australian Greenhouse Office executive. Unfortunately, the consensus opinion was formed before the ‘key gaps in the data’ were filled. Those gaps are still waiting to be filled – even after the projects that you announced this week are complete. The common belief led policymakers to see Agriculture as ‘problem’ rather than ‘opportunity’. Funding for trials was denied. Meanwhile farmers were recording rates of soil carbon increases 10 to 100-times faster than official science (by focussing on soil biology). Official science has also started to record higher rates of sequestration than the models, based on incomplete data, will allow.

Core Issue: A farmer could see the gaps in the NCAS research at a glance because he knows what to look for. Scientists are not fully briefed on emerging land management practices, they might construct methodologies that potentially do not reflect practical reality. This in turn could compromise the research. Where the outcome of this research underpins public policy that will affect the financial well-being of an entire industry, it becomes a critical issue.

Core Proposition: We recommend that a collaborative approach to science in Agriculture be pursued.

The professional farmer or grazier can help identify the landscape issues that should inform the construction of the study. The farmer in turn will learn more about scientific method. The Carbon Coalition has been developing these types of relationships for three years, engaging scientists and practitioners in five knowledge-sharing events, two of which have been National Carbon Farming Conferences. The scientists involved have included Prof. Richard Eckard, Prof. Peter Grace, Prof. Alex McBratney, Dr Jeff Baldock, Dr Brian Murphy, Dr Annette Cowie, Dr Greg Chapman, and Dr Yin Chan, who has long championed the capacity of Australian soils to sequester.


Collaborative Science in Agriculture is not novel. It was a finding of the 2020 Summit’s Rural Stream: "New participatory approaches to research, including on-ground research extension, are needed … The most effective way of generating on-ground change is by having producers actively involved in participatory approaches to research since ‘farmers are often first order innovators’."

We believe your announcement this week of nine key projects, the strategic nature of these studies, and their timing makes it imperative that we engage farmers in the process.

Recommendations:

1. That the Minister requests the CSIRO which has overarching responsibility for the nine projects to engage members of the Carbon Farming community in discussions about the methodology chosen for the studies.
2. That the scientists listed above be consulted as to the sincere collaborative intention of the Carbon Farmers. And that the credibility of the studies in question would be guaranteed by such transparency.

Request: That a meeting be arranged as soon as possible between the relevant people at the Ministry, the CSIRO and a delegation of Carbon Farmers.

Thank you.

Michael Kiely
Convenor
(And attached signatories).

"Optical Illusion"

Many conventional scientists fall into an ‘optical illusion’ when considering the claims of Carbon Farmers about sequestration rates. They start with a belief in a small amount of carbon per hectare. But the calculation must step up the value twice: First from Carbon to Carbon Dioxide Equivalent, a multiplication exercise:

C x 3.67 = CO2-e.

The second calculation is also a multiplication, from one hectare to the total area:

CO2-e/ha/yr x Total ha = Total CO2-e/yr.

When 0.15C/ha can become 27,500tCO-e, no wonder scientists cry foul. But if they want to take part in a conversation which is not strictly scientific, they must observe the language in which the conversation is being conducted. In the arid zone, 50,000ha is not unusual.

If we extrapolate the lowest score of 0.15tonnes Carbon/h/yr over half the area used for Agriculture (225m ha) we shall see if soil, which already has Critical Mass, can also have Massive Capability:

0.15tC/ha x 3.67 = 0.5505tCO2-e

225m ha x 0.5505tCO2-e = 123.8mtCO2-e.

The represents about a quarter of Australian emissions per year.

Beware the Optical Illusion when calculating Soil Carbon.

A VICTORY FOR THE FARMERS AND GRAZIERS OF AUSTRALIA

MINISTER Tony Burke is a remarkable man.
He deserves our Thanks... for understanding what we understand. That there is something vast and universal just beneath the surface of the Earth. It has powers we barely can begin to comprehend. And that it is worth investigating.
He deserves our Thanks... for listening. The soil carbon world view requires a paradigm shift, not an easy thing to do on command. But you have opened your ears and eyes.
He deserves our Thanks...for acting boldly... It can't have been easy to launch what we believe is the largest soil carbon research program in the world today. There are many people against it.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s commitment last year that the Government would investigate the benefits of soil carbon storage was a major victory for Australian Agriculture.
The investment of $20million in soil carbon says many things, most importantly, that soil carbon sequestration is not some lunatic fantasy. It is real. it will happen.
SO thank you Mr Burke and Thank You Mr Rudd...
(And thank you Mr Hunt and thank you Mr Turnbull (who took a merciless hammering over his support for soil carbon from Kerry O'Brien last week on the 7.30 Report. SHame on you, Kerry.)

A Good Conspiracy, At Last...

There is the FAO agitating for it. Now the US Deoartment of Agriculture has started.... and the World Bank.... and the largest lobby group membershio on the planet. The International Federation of Agricultural Producers has 600,000,000 farmers (including me) as members.

It is putting together a powerful lobby group - including the USA and the World Bank - pushing for the inclusion of agriculture as a stand-alone component of the expected post-Kyoto agreement on climate change at the upcoming UN multilateral negotiations to be held in December 2009 in Copenhagen, Denmark. It will set the framework for how the world deals with climate change.

The delegation, led by the IFAP President, met with Sally Collins, Director of Ecosystem Services and Markets for the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). Ms. Collins is responsible for establishing guidelines for measuring environmental services benefits and verifying reports from landowners, such as farmers, which will serve as the basis for a carbon credit and marketing scheme on the national level in the United States, and will also likely serve as a global model for development.

Until now, agriculture has not had a place at the table in the negotiations on climate change. IFAP expressed support for the idea of putting in place an international and harmonized measurement system for carbon and an international trading system for carbon that would reward farmers, with the support of the USDA .
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IFAP expressed support for the idea of putting in place an international and harmonized measurement system for carbon and an international trading system for carbon that would reward farmers, with the support of the USDA .

IFAP also met with Katherine Sierra, Vice President of the World Bank in charge of agriculture and environmental issues, to mainly discuss climate change and other related environmental issues. Ms. Sierra wholeheartedly supported IFAP in including agriculture in the climate change agenda. She said their agriculture group will help position dialogue with an opening to include land and agriculture. Katherine Sierra highlighted that the World Bank efforts on climate change will focus on identifying best practices and building them into their regular development programs in a changing environment, rather than having special programs for climate change. She also indicated that the World Bank will have 50 million dollars over five years available to figure out how to get agriculture mitigation into the Copenhagen outcome. Ms. Sierra is reasonably confident of success, and she said IFAP would be an important partner in this regard. We need to look at the science and the mechanisms, including how the 370 billion in annual subsidies in Western countries that already exist are tied to or can be moved towards an environmental focus, but are not tied to climate change.

IFAP will further collaborate with the USDA and the World Bank in the run up to the upcoming UN Climate Conferences in order to make sure agriculture is put on the agenda.

The IFAP delegation included IFAP President Ajay Vashee, the President of the North Dakota Farmers’ Union, Robert Carlson, IFAP Senior Policy Officer Nora Ourabah, and IFAP Communication Coordinator Neil Sorensen. For more information, or to provide input on IFAP’s climate change related activities, please contact Nora Ourabah, Senior Policy Officer, at nora.ourabah@ifap.org

to provide input on IFAP’s climate change related activities, please contact Nora Ourabah, Senior Policy Officer, at nora.ourabah@ifap.org

Do we look a gift horse in the mouth? HELL YES!

I don't know about you but I am a little uneasy about $20million being given to people who have argued against the soil carbon solution for three years. Will they find that they were wrong before or will they find that they were right?

We need to formulate an industry-wide communique. ASAP

Watch this space.

"$32 million program to research soil carbon storage" BUT WHO'S FRAMING THE QUESTIONS?

"Scientists believe soil can store more carbon than forests. Finding a way to boost carbon storage in Australia’s vast pastures and farming land could significantly reduce our greenhouse gas emissions," said Tony Burke's press release today when he announced that scientists would be given $20 million for soil C research.
Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry Tony Burke said it would be the most comprehensive research effort into soil carbon and emissions ever seen in Australia. For the first time, the work will create national standards for sampling and analysing soil carbon and nitrous oxide emissions. The projects will cover all states and territories.The initiatives, under the Climate Change Research Program, include funding from the Federal Government, industry and research bodies.It follows Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s commitment last year that the Government would investigate the benefits of soil carbon storage.
Nine soil carbon research projects will sample a range of agricultural systems, including cereal crops, sheep and beef grazing, sugarcane and vegetable farming, irrigated and non-irrigated dairy, and sites which have changed from one farming system to another. Mr Burke said: “While forests play a very important role in carbon storage, they are not the only answer and we will continue investigating other options such as soil. We have so much land covered by pastures and other farming systems that we could significantly reduce our greenhouse gas emissions by boosting soil carbon storage.”
Key priorities for the soil carbon research will include:
* Measuring carbon levels in a range of agricultural systems;
* Understanding the impacts of management practices on soil carbon; and
* Understanding the role Australian soils could play in sequestering carbon dioxide from the atmosphere
The Climate Change Research Program forms part of Australia’s Farming Future, an initiative designed to help our primary industries adapt and respond to climate change.



Soil Carbon Research Program

Soil carbon research program overarching project – CSIRO
This project will undertake the technical oversight and management of the Soil Carbon Research Program. It will develop standardised data collection protocols and undertake carbon content analysis.

South eastern SA cereals, sheep and beef systems and Australia wide perennial sheep pastures – CSIRO
This project will identify sites and undertake sampling within south-eastern South Australia’s cereal, sheep and beef systems. Perennial pasture sites will also be identified and sampling will be undertaken throughout the country — particularly in WA and NSW.

South-west Western Australia: Cereal, sheep and beef systems – University of Western Australia & WA Department of Agriculture & Food
This project will engage with a number of grower groups and collect samples from a number of their sites. It will also undertake sampling at sites where management practices have been in place for a minimum of five years.

Victorian dairy, sheep, cereal and beef systems – Victorian Department of Primary Industries and the Co-operative Research Centre for Future Farming
This project will undertake re-sampling of a number of ongoing crop and pasture sites around Hamilton, Rutherglen and Ararat. It will build upon work which has previously occurred under the EverGraze program as well as DPI long-term experimental sites at Horsham, Rutherglen and Walpeup. Engagement with ongoing farmer trials will be undertaken with Southern Farming Systems, the Birchip Cropping Group and the South West Climate Change Forum.

Northern rangelands beef systems – Queensland Departments of Natural Resources & Water and of Primary Industries
This project will undertake sampling at Kidman Springs (NT) to assess the effects of cell grazing. The sites have documented fire and management histories. It will also resample a Toorak grazing trial in north-western Queensland. This sampling will include a range of soil types and rainfalls.

Queensland cereals and sugar - Queensland Departments of Natural Resources & Water and of Primary Industries
This project will undertake sampling of grain cropping systems at the long-term Hermitage Fallow Management Trial near Warwick in Queensland and sugar cropping systems at Tully and Mackay. No-till grain trials will be sampled near Biloela and Goodger and archived soil will be analysed from a number of historic trials (Biloela, Warra, Nindigully, Mt Murchison and Goodger).
Additional sugarcane sites in the Northern Rivers, Mackay and Ingham regions will be sampled – including tilled and permanent beds and across a number of soil types and rainfall levels.

New South Wales cereals, cotton, sheep and beef systems - University of New England, NSW Departments of Primary Industries and of Environment and Climate Change
This project will undertake sampling at 20 long-term trials with 25 corresponding satellite sites on private land to define amounts and variance of carbon contained in pools of soils from the major land-use/soil type combinations in NSW.

New South Wales cereals and beef - Murray Catchment Management Authority
This project will undertake sampling and analysis of paired sites which have been under no-till/conventional till and set stocking/controlled grazing practices.

Tasmanian vegetables and dairy systems - Tasmanian Institute for Agricultural Research, University of Tasmania and Botanical Resources Australia P/L
This project will undertake sampling at a number of broadacre cropping and vegetable sites across the state – including low input pasture/irrigated cropping and short-term perennial/long term pasture. Sampling will also be undertaken on existing sites which have undertaken a change from pasture to cropping and on paired sites which compare irrigated and non-irrigated dairy and beef systems.



Nitrous Oxide Research Program

Nitrous oxide research program coordination – Grains Research and Development Corporation
This project will take a leadership role in the administration and coordination of the Nitrous Oxide Research Program. This will include the management of program governance and reporting.

Integrated data and synthesis framework for reducing nitrous oxide emissions from Australian agricultural soils – Queensland University of Technology
This project will undertake the management and technical oversight of the Nitrous Oxide Research Program. It will develop standardised data collection protocols, develop a web-based remote data capture program and manage project datasets for national databases.

Reducing nitrous oxide emissions from sugarcane lands – Sugar Research and Development Corporation and Grains Research and Development Corporation
This project will measure nitrous oxide emissions from sugarcane and grain legume– sugarcane rotations near Mackay, with and without the use of inhibitors. The standardised data will then be incorporated into the broad program dataset.

Decreasing nitrous oxide emissions in high rainfall legume/wheat cropping systems – Victorian Department of Primary Industries and Grains Research and Development Corporation
This project will measure nitrous oxide emissions from direct drilled and conventionally sown legume/wheat rotations – with and without the use of inhibitors – at a site near Hamilton. The standardised data will then be incorporated into the broad program dataset.

Fertiliser management strategies for decreasing on-farm greenhouse gas emissions – University of Western Australia, Department of Agriculture and Food WA, and Grains Research and Development Corporation
This project will measure nitrous oxide emissions from direct drilled wheat at Wongan Hills, south west Western Australia that has been grown under a range of treatments. The standardised data will then be incorporated into the broad program dataset.

The potential of inhibitors for the mitigation of nitrous oxide emissions from animal production systems, in south-eastern Australia – Victorian Department of Primary Industries and Dairy Australia
This project will measure nitrous oxide emissions following the application of urine and inhibitors at the DemoDairy site near Terang, Victoria, as well as numerous additional satellite sites. The standardised data will then be incorporated into the broad program dataset.

Enhanced efficiency fertilisers as mitigation tools for reducing greenhouse gas emissions from intensive agricultural systems in Australia – University of Melbourne and Incitec Pivot fertilisers Pty and Grains Research and Development Corporation
This project will entail a laboratory based assessment of nitrous oxide emissions from a range of soils which have been treated with nitrification inhibitors. The standardised data will then be incorporated into the broad program dataset.

Irrigated cotton and grain cropping systems – Queensland University of Technology and Cotton Catchment Communities CRC and Grains Research and Development Corporation.
This project will measure nitrous oxide emissions from irrigated cotton and grain cropping systems between the Darling Downs in Queensland and the Macquarie Valley in New South Wales. The standardised data will then be incorporated into the broad program dataset.

Winter rain-fed cereals – New South Wales Department of Primary Industries, University of Melbourne, University of New England and Grains Research and Development Corporation.
This project will measure nitrous oxide emissions from winter rain-fed cereals under various treatments, including: different row placements of crops; and inclusion of legumes in the rotation. The standardised data will then be incorporated into the broad program dataset.