Will the Government abandon Agriculture?

Here is a quick summary of what the Government intends to do to Agriculture with its Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme:

1. The Wong bases its system on covering the 1000 big emitters and the rest of the community contributes when they pay higher costs for products and services from these Big Emitters. A “Big Emitter” emits 25,000 tonnes CO2e per year.

COMMENT: Agriculture has few operations that emit this amount. It has between 100,000 and 130,000 operations. But because this Government wants to include Agriculture in the Scheme so it bends the rules and declares that Agriculture is a “Big Emitter” as a sector of the economy. This belief is based on the volumes of methane released by ruminant animals (cattle, sheep). The Government is confident that it can measure the methane emitted by the entire national herd or flock, but it cannot measure the methane emitted by ne herd or flock. This is the reason it gives for delaying the entry of Agriculture into the Scheme: “The agricultural sector is characterised by thousands of small emitters and the calculation of emissions is complex, so it would not be practical at this stage to cover those emissions directly.” And again: “Estimating agriculture emissions is complex. These emissions are highly variable in response to management practices and climatic conditions. How can the Government know the volume of methane emitted by all the herds and flocks together and not know what each group of animals released?


2. It will delay Agriculture’s entry into the Emissions Trading Scheme until 2015. It will decide on whether the sector is “In” or “Out” in 2013.

COMMENT: This impacts people in Agriculture in the following ways: Even though we’re not “In” for purposes of reducing our emissions (and presumably balancing them with our soil carbon), we are “In” because we are paying higher costs from those industries that are “In” and those involved in processing their produce (eg. dairy) will be responsible for the emissions from these operations. The deadly difference between those industries covered by the Scheme and Agriculture is this: they can simply pass the increase costs on. We can’t. (In Government circles there is a belief that we can simply “pass it on at the sale yards”.)

But an even more striking decision has been taken by the government. It has decided not to engage agricultural soils as a major sink in the "Decade For Serious Action", declared by Sir Nicholas Stern in 2006. By not bringing Agriculture into the scheme until 2015, the Rudd Govern.ment is electing to ignore the soil carbon solution altogether or to put off engaging it for seven more years.

3. If the Government can’t find a way to overcome the measurement and cost of compliance issues by 2013, it says it will find other ways for Agriculture to contribute. It will impose a tax or some regulation on farm activities. Despite the belief among national industry representatives that simply reciting a long list of difficulties and pleading for more time and more research, Agriculture will not escape attention.

COMMENT: If the Government decides in 2013 not to cover Agriculture emissions in the Scheme, it will consider alternative mitigation measures. “To ensure that the agriculture sector makes an equivalent contribution to other sectors, the Government is disposed to apply mitigation measures that result in costs similar to those under the Scheme. For example, if the carbon price was $25 per tonne of CO2-e, the Government would seek to mandate the use of mitigation technologies or practices in the agriculture sector with the intention of achieving a cost of around $25 per tonne CO2-e.”

4. Agriculture will not be involved in trading soil carbon, if the Government has its way. The White Paper sets it down clearly: Agriculture will not be able to produce and sell offsets when it is not covered and also when it is covered. No reason is given for this decision.

COMMENT: Even though it is not covered by the CPRS, and the White Paper says: “Offset credits could potentially be created by those sectors not covered by the Scheme”, it also says: “The Scheme will not include domestic offsets from agriculture emissions in the period prior to coverage of these emissions.”

5. If it is unable to include Agriculture to account for its emissions ‘on-farm’ because the cost of measurement is too high for individual farmers, the Government favours a system which sees them pay for their emissions by paying more for inputs like fertilizer (with the fertilizer retailer paying for the N2O that will be emitted when the fertilizer is applied) or getting less from buyers (the buyer paying for the amount of methae the animal produced during its lifetime). That is, the points of obligation are ‘off-farm’, at a point before or after the farm in the supply chain.

COMMENT: The amount of N2O the farmer actually released while applying the fertilizer would vary significantly depending on the application method, the time of year, and the weather conditions. Therefore the degree of uncertainty is extreme. The system is also unjust because the Farmer is the only one in the chain who cannot pass on increased costs.

6. The Government is reluctant to include Article 3.4 that allows countries to include the soil carbon they can sequester in their national accounts because the Kyoto rules say that a country has to be responsible for all emissions – man-made and natural causes – if it wants to count its sinks. This would make Australia would have to pay credits for emissions from drought and bushfire.

COMMENT: The Government agrees that the Kyoto rules do not reflect reality in Australia and took a paper to the Posnan Meeting of the Kyoto participants in late 2008. However it has not taken a hard line, as Australia did in the first round negotiations and as other nations have, threatening to withdraw if discriminatory and illogical rules designed to suit European countries are not changed. The Federal Government rushed in to ratify Kyoto, losing the opportunity to win concessions.

7. The Government relies upon its out-of-date data in the National Carbon Accounting Scheme to support its decision to leave soil carbon our by choosing to exclude Article 3.4. The mythical difference between Australia’s soils and those of the Northern Hemisphere is used to support the erroneous statement that our soils have lower potential for sequestration.

COMMENT: “Scientific research conducted in Australia suggests that, while there are opportunities for increasing and retaining agricultural soil carbon, Australia does not have the same sequestration potential as other countries, and there is significant risk of loss of soil carbon in times of drought or changed management practice.” The weakness of this statement can be revealed by three facts: 1. The carbon rich soils of Europe and North America have less ‘potential’ to sequester than Australia's because they have more already. Ie. their bucket is almost full while ours is nearly empty. Dr YN Chan says Australia has lost 50% of its soil carbon, but we can put it all back. 2. The best soils in the Northern Hemisphere have their equivalent in Australia and vice versa. You will find arid soils in Spain and Montana. 3. The “Potential” of Australian soil has not been measured by scientists, only “actual performance”. And the performance of the soils under all known land management techniques has not been measured. So we are ignorant of the soil’s potential. Therefore the rationale for not opting for Article 3.4 is not robust.

8. Farm forestry is “In” and enjoys a tax break because the Government favours a shift in land use from agriculture to forestry because it is a shift towards less emissions-intensive activities that ‘would reflect an efficient allocation of resources taking into account the carbon price.’ The Government believes new forests would be established ‘on more marginal or less productive agricultural land’. Water interception will be avoided by new management practices that the Government will put in place.

COMMENT: This issue reveals the Government’s blind belief in the primacy of emissions reduction over agricultural activities and ignorance of the way rural societies amd economies fit together. The Department of Climate Change either ignores or cannot understand the impact on the market value of land when there is no carbon price for soil but a carbon price for trees. The distorted market will not allocate of resources efficiently. Further, forestry promoters do not settle for marginal land. Finally, the DCC’s policies are depopulating the bush and deepening the depression suffered by many in rural communities.

9. The Government in the White paper is determined to give no ground to Offsets, thereby threatening the “market” mechanism as it operates in other countries and putting the entire Voluntary Market at risk. It appears to have adopted a “Dark Green” position on Offsets. Dark Greens do not like them. The White Paper’s authors make every argument against them while conceding nothing in their favour. This is an ideological position. It adopts the language of the WWF* as well as its arguments: “Offset Schemes are administratively complex and require considerable judgement to determine baselines—‘what would have happened in the absence of the offset project’. Determining these baselines is inherently subjective, increasing the risk that the Scheme does not promote genuine abatement.”

COMMENT: The following list of reasons why offsets are not to be allowed reveals a Government desperately scraping thebottom of the barrel for arguments: Argument 1.: “Scheme offsets could be used interchangeably with pollution permits and would, therefore, need to meet internationally recognised standards. These require that offsets are only issued for abatement that is measurable, has actually occurred, is additional to business-as-usual and is permanent (that is, is not subsequently reversed). Offsets therefore involve relatively high compliance costs both to project proponents and to the Scheme regulator, for approving, monitoring and verifying each offset project to ensure that abatement meets the required standards.” (Comment: All schemes operate in this way.) 2.: “Domestic offsets could only come from emissions sources that are outside the Scheme. The very broad sectoral coverage proposed for the Scheme means that there is inherently less scope to pursue offset activities.” (Why not let the market decide these things?) 3.: “Further, the Government has indicated that, where practical, it will apply alternative mitigation measures to sources of emissions that can not be covered or are likely to remain outside the Scheme for an extended period of time.” (The cap and trade system does not mean all emissions are covered from day 1. Some emitters may ant to buy offsets to cover their balance and become ‘neutral’.) 4.: “Offsets could only be issued for abatement that is additional to such measures. The scope for domestic offsets from uncovered sources is, therefore, likely to be very limited.” (Additionality has many dimensions, and it has not stopped a vigorous market growing in many countries.) 5.: “Domestic offset projects would not add to total national abatement because offsets would be issued in addition to the Scheme cap and would therefore allow an increase in emissions within the Scheme.” (This is not true. Many companies buy offsets to volunariliy reduce their footprint.) “In other words, offset projects outside the Scheme would allow less abatement to be done within the Scheme and, other things being equal, would reduce the price of permits. However, the cost of reducing emissions would still be borne by firms whose emissions were covered by the Scheme.” (The cap does not eliminate all liability. And offsets are not used to escape responsibility anywhere except in the imagination of an extreme green ideologue. In fact, this statement comes from a WWF publication.)**

10. “There are likely to be important opportunities to increase the carbon stored in agricultural soils.” BUT the White Paper takes the most pessimistic view of the possibility that the world’s most highly respected soil carbon scientist is right: Soil carbon sequestration is the only hope we have to blunt the most extreme impact of Climate Change: “C Sequestration in soil and vegetation is a bridge to the future. It buys us time while alternatives to fossil fuel take effect.” - Dr Rattan Lal, Director, Carbon Management and Sequestration Center, Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, IPCC Lead Author

The White Paper makes no attempt to address one dominant reality: That soil carbon is the only realistic option the world has to manage the transition to the new cllmate regime. The climate chaos the world is experiencing is caused by CO2 already in the atmosphere, released over the last 100 years. The Legacy Load is big enough to drive the globe through the critical 2°C limit and into calamitous results. None of the following can extract The Legacy Load because they can only deal with avoiding future emissions, not absorbing past emissions: • Clean Coal technology • Solar energy • Wind energy • Thermal energy
• Tidal energy. Only photosynthesis can absorb CO2 from the atmosphere but only one of the following can extract the Legacy Load within the 10 year time frame that Nicholas Stern gave the world to do something serious about climate change (2 years ago): [ ] Biochar –technology and cost issues [ ] Forests – would take more than 10 years to plant [ ] Algae – technology problems not yet solved. [ √ ] Pasture grasses and crops – 5.5bilion hectares ready to start tomorrow.

Agricultural soils have critical mass and massive capacity already deployed. If each hectare was to capture only 0.5 tonne of carbon per hectare per year, we would extract more than the 8.7 gigatonnes the world emits each year. There would be extra capacity to absorb the Legacy Load. The Earth can absorb carbon for 25-30 years. But this gives the other solutions listed above time to reach critical mass. Farmers must be given a strong reason to change the way they manage their soils. So that they capture carbon. It requires a 180° change from conventional farming. Carbon Credits for soil would be sufficient incentive. Agricultural offsets. Which the Government refuses to allow.

FOOTNOTES:

* “A major limitation of offset systems based on project-based mitigation is that emission reductions have to be measured against a counterfactual reality. The emissions that would have occurred if the market for offsets did not exist need to be estimated in order to calculate the quantity of emissions reductions that the project achieved. This hypothetical reality cannot be proven; instead, it must be inferred and its definition is always to some extent subjective.” - Anja Kollmuss, Helge Zink, Clifford Polycarp, Making Sense of the Voluntary Carbon Market: A Comparison of Carbon Offset Standards, WWF, March 2008

**”If they can buy offsets and these come from projects that are fully additional, then the offsets replace reductions that the cap-and-trade participant would have had to otherwise achieve himself. In other words, under a cap-and-trade system, offsets do not lead to emissions reductions beyond the target set by the cap but only cause a geographical shift in where the emissions reduction occurs. Therefore, non-additional offsets sold into a cap-and-trade system will actually lead to an increase in emissions since the buyer will not have reduced his emissions and the seller will not have offset this increase in emissions.” - ibid

Voluntary Carbon Market Association formed

The voluntary market wil be very important for soil carbon, especially in the early stages of the game. For this reason, we support the Voluntary Carbon Markets Association (VCMA) because the voluntary market isthreatened by the Government's Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme.
The main aim of the VCMA is to restore the link between voluntary abatement action by Australians and real reduction in Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions. The VCMA also aims to expand the role of voluntary abatement.
The VCMA was established in November 2008 aand represents a broad range of organisations and individuals, including:
• Providers of offsets from both within and outside sectors covered by the CPRS and GreenPower providers;
•Organisations (such as businesses, local governments, etc) that wish to be seen as ‘carbon neutral’, or wish to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions and contribute to Australia’s reduction in emissions by purchase of Greenpower or offsets;
•Businesses that provide goods and services that may contribute to voluntary abatement;
• Community organisations representing the rights of households and/or others to gain recognition for their voluntary abatement action," it says.
The President of the VCMA, Ric Brazzale has had a long involvement iet and is a supporter ofoluntary actions by companies and individuals to reduce emissions - including Green Power schemes and buying offsets for emissions on plane flights - now save 6 million tonnes of emissions a year, and involve one in six Australian families. "Inadequate targets will lead to inadequate emission reductions," Mr Brazzale said. "It is imperative to encourage voluntary action by individuals and business to achieve emissions reductions beyond relatively minor levels."
The association is urging the Government to allow carbon savings through "measurable and verified voluntary action" by households or business to extinguish emissions trading permits . Without this, it warned, emissions trading "will effectively decimate the voluntary market in Australia".
Mr Brazzale is on the same wavelength as the Coalition when it comes to urgency and the Legacy Load. He wrote the following in The Age in 2006:
"Time is a precious commodity we don't have much of in relation to global warming. Every tonne of carbon dioxide we release into the atmosphere is up there for the next 100 years. Every year we wait is a 100-year legacy that makes our job that much harder and requires much steeper cuts later. If Stern is right, making nuclear power the vanguard of an energy revolution pitches Australia head first into risky territory — economically and otherwise — simply because of the delay it demands."
He argues for immediate deployment of solar and other alternatives.
But he has made, in these few sentences, the case for soil carbon.

Soil Carbon: Will Turnbull's Research be too late?

The Carbon Coalition welcomes the Federal Opposition Leader's endorsement of soil carbon as a major solution for Climate Change. And the promise of more research.* Malcolm has a clear understanding of the issues surrounding soil carbon, according to his Shadow Minister for Climate Change Greg Hunt. "We're fully engaged," he said, several times. But we all know that soil carbon is a complex issue. It gets too hard if you're not committed. How committed could a Leader of an Opposition be? It is hard to detemine the detail of his plan from the briad brush strokes of his speech to the Young Liberals Conference. He said that his climate change strategy "is founded on optimism and confidence, ingenuity and enterprise." This is a stark contrast to the fear-driven strategy the Government has pursued, especially in its communications with farmers. Malcolm goes on: "It is a plan to invest in the health of our landscape, enhance the productivity of our agriculture, and increase our food and energy security." His "Green Carbon Initiative" is "a comprehensive biocarbon strategy of investing in the health of our landscape, restoring soil carbon by reversing over-grazing and excessive tillage, embedding CO2 in bio-char or charcoal, tree planting, and revegetation." He describes soil as one of "three gigantic opportunities for CO2 abatement that the Rudd Government has ignored." It is not exactly "Soil Carbon Manifesto", but it might become one. The Carbon Coalition is briefing the Opposition and will seek to reach a clear understanding of its intentions.

*We don't need more research. We need the right research and we need some process innovation. The type of research we do not need is that which describes how hard it is to measure soil carbon, and that focusses on the fractions of carbon in soil. They are irrelevant in a trading context. Total carbon is all that is required. Flux is irrelevant. What the market needs to know is the delta in total C between two points in time. They are purchasing the delta. The type of research we do need is that which measures the performance of real world "Carbon Farming" techniques in different climate zones so we can populate a suitable model with data. "Zero tillage with stubble retained" is not Carbon Farming and the Coalition does not hold it out as such. It is a means of neutralising the CO2 emissions from ploughing, with a small increase in Carbon over time. It is 'standing still', but at least it is not going backwards. (The Government is not counting CO2 losses from ploughing.) We also need innovation in the processes that make trade possible. The Measurement Issue is not something science can resolve. Tony Lovell has clearly demonstrated that we should be guided by the answer to the question "For what purpose?" when asking how accurate our measurement need to be. When the answer is "to give a buyer confidence", the degree of exactitude is different to that which is required for the purpose of scientific enquiry. Degrees of uncertainty are necessary for the 'risk/reward' device to operate as an essential mechanism forming a market. Malcolm Turnbull will understand this issue easily.

CSIRO shifting stand on soil carbon?

A small item but mighty powerful news: The CSIRO is softening its stand against soil carbon trading for Australian farmers. "Soil work a coup for carbon?" read the headline on a report on Dr Clive Kirkby's "trials into storing soil carbon in cropping land [which] may have an impact on the role of grain production in future emissions trading schemes (ETS)." "Dr Kirkby now believed nutrient levels were the key to soil carbon," reports The Land. "If the theory can be proven, it will have an important role in dealing grain production into the carbon trading landscape... Proving that carbon could be stored in stubble paddocks would add a strong argument to croppers becoming involved in ETS plans," says the report. There can be no doubt that the article appears to reverse all previous CSIRO attempts to derail the soil carbon movement.
Dr Kirkby deserves credit for changing his position, quite a shift since he co-authored the now famous GRDC Groundcover article which said that humus would be too costly to grow because of all the nitrogen fertiliser needed to make humus. Nitrogen only comes out of a bag, it was suggested, and worldwide prices for it were too high to make growing humus financially viable. In fact free living bacteria give nitrogen away free. They make it from the air. It's yours free! (Sounds like snake oil? Look it up.)

It's Official: Real world now 10-times faster than soil carbon models?

Models used to 'predict' the C-sequestration rates of Australian soils could be out by a fact of 6 or even 10, according to analysis of data released by the Victorian DI and GRDC recently. The data indicates that Australian soils can sequester carbon 6 to 10 times faster than the models allow.

The data was published by Dr Peter Fisher of the Victorian DPI. (Relevant sections of the press release below. Tony Lovell of Soil Carbon Australia provides the following analysis of the data:

TONY LOVELL'S ANALYSIS: "This news is still incredibly good and should really help to shift the discussion. Peter is saying the modelling suggests a 2t/ha increase in organic matter input for the same conditions, results in a change in soil carbon value of about 0.13pc after 20 years. However his research indicates that a 2t/ha increase in soil organic matter might result in approximately a 0.4pc change after only 10 years. Lets do some super basic maths on this - 0.4pc is 3 times as much as 0.13pc, and 10 years is twice as quick as 20 years - so this is still a factor of 6 times better. But what does Peter's model suggest at year 10 rather than year 20? Is the difference even greater - maybe somewhere closer to an order of magnitude (10 times)? If someone could prove to me that I could do something 6 to 10 times faster than everyone else was saying was possible, I would be a damn happy camper. And this on places where the farmers were not even focussed on building soil carbon."

DR FISHER'S PRESS RELEASE: 

A key finding from the paired paddocks trial was that for every extra tonne per hectare of above-ground and below-ground organic matter – maintained on average for 10 years, the soil carbon percentage was found to be more than 0.2% higher. 

“This increase is greater than most carbon modelling suggests,” Dr Fisher said. “Most carbon modelling indicates that increasing soil carbon is a very slow process, taking many decades to achieve significant changes. For example, modelling a 2 t/ha increase in organic matter input for the same conditions, results in a change in soil carbon value of about 0.13% after 20 years. 

“In contrast, the relationship developed between change in organic matter input and change in soil carbon at the 13 paired paddocks in the trial, suggested that a 2 t/ha increase in soil organic matter might result in approximately a 0.4% change in carbon level, after only 10 years.” 


QUESTIONS SENT TO DR FISHER ON 8 JANUARY 2009:

1. Was that a 2% increase over 10 years (ie. 0.2%/yr for 10 years) or was it 0.2% over 10 years?

2. What were the land management techniques used to return the organic matter to the soil?Stubble? Stubble processed through animals? Stubble ploughed in? Compost? Each of these will have a different effect on carbon scores, depending on the availability of the organic matter to the microbes. And the state of health of the microbial community will affect the incorporation of the organic matter. Highly active soil will see stubble disappear in a few days. Inactive 'dead' soil will have stubble oxidise, with very little being incorporated. This would affect your carbon readings.

3. What other management techniques were in use on the paddocks? Cover crop? Fertiliser? Pesticides? Herbicides? Minimum Till? No Till?

4. What was the history of the paddocks? (Ie. a paddock which had been under perennial pasture until recently would be in the early stages of rapidly losing significant carbon while a long-cropped paddock would have plateaued at a low carbon point.

5. The models: how old is the data on which they were built?

6. Given what we know about microbial communities and their frontline role in manufacturing carbon, was there any analysis done of the paddocks to ascertain their background level of microbial activity before the trials commenced.

CCX wrestles with additionality

This is Dale Enerson, director of the National Farmers Union carbon offset program. He controls the largest number of farmers and ranchers enrolled in the Chicago Climate Exchange's (CCX) agricultural abatements trading scheme. He works for the North Dakota Farmers Union which provides services to the NFU. The Carbon Coalition met with Dale to discuss the unrest with the CCX scheme in LaFayette, indiana in October and in Santa Fe, New Mexico in December, 2008. We also attended a meeting in Boezman, Montana. We also met Dave Miller of the Iowa Farm Bureau's AgraGate operation and Ted Dodge of the National Carbon Offset Coalition, from Montana. These represent the Big 3 aggregators supplying the CCX.
As a result of the concerns expressed at meetings like these, the Chicago Climate Exchange is overhauling it system of rewarding farmers and ranchers who store carbon. "After Jan. 30, ranchers won’t be able to market their past efforts to store carbon dioxide in the soil dating back to 2003. Going forward, the Chicago Climate Exchange will accept only efforts to limit greenhouse gases related to the current year and future years," reports AGWEEK.
Selling carbon credits for action in the past is not leading to "additional" reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.
Dale Enerson, director of the National Farmers Union program, thinks this will take the heat off the scheme which has been heavily criticised by activists and customers. “From here forward, we think it will be more bulletproof in terms of criticism if you just offer current year and forward credits,” he said.
There have been changes for rangeland credits as well. They bring the rangeland program into line with the rules for carbon credits that farmers can sell for using no-till farming practices or growing grasses on cropland. Ranchers qualify for credits by using certain rotational grazing practices or by planting grasses and trees. Farmers are included for using no-till farming practices or by converting cropland into pasture or forest. Livestock producers can join in by installing systems to capture methane from manure.
Random checks are conducted to make sure farmers and ranchers are doing what they promised.
The big problem with the CCX model is the method for measurement of the soil carbon captured and held. CCX uses a 100% indicator or proxy system, governed by visual audits. Landholders get only a fraction of ton in credit for every acre enrolled in the program, and that rate per acre varies based on what measures are being taken and the land’s location. price the market has been giving farmers and consequently the number of farmers getting involved. While carbon credits sold on the CCX are fetching about $1.50 a metric ton now, last year, the Farmer’s Union averaged about $4.40 per ton with all the credits it sold. About 4,000 farmers and ranchers in about 40 states are enrolled in the Farmer’s Union program. That’s up from about 2,300 participants in 20 states roughly six months ago.
Currently, the Chicago Climate Exchange system is voluntary. It is expected that within the next five years, there will be some sort of federal requirement to reduce emissions or buy credits to offset emissions, which would increase the market for credits.
"The whole carbon market, it’s in its infancy,” Dale Enerson says.


PICTURED: The Carey's Cattle Ranch near Three Forks, Montana. We visited with Tom and Helen on their 10,000 acre ranch, thanks to our new friends Chuck Widemans (a geophysicist) and his wife Debbie Hanneman (also a geophysicist)

Bad news for fans of CCX system

The state of play in the USA is hard to say... when it comes to soil C sequestration.
The conversations we had with the major American aggregators (Iowa Farm Bureau, North Dakota Farmers Union, National Carbon Offset Coalition) in November and December last year told us that the Chicago Climate Exchange model is losing support from both sides of the trade. Buyers say the offsets are not robust enough and sellers say the price is too low. CCX is working on revamping its system. There are some in the debate in Australia who think low enough is good enough, that farmers should not be given access to the full value of the carbon abatements they can create, and instead they should attempt to pay the cost of their emissions with the pittance a CCX-style system would pay or with the "Big Fat Nothing" that Jenny Wong's advisers say the farmers should get. Which is close to what they will get if hey are fobbed off with 'stewardship payments', the environmental movement's Trojan Horse.
Meanwhile, we hope the President-Elect knows about the fatal weakness of the low-value abatements as we hear this week that he moving on soil carbon sequestration under a review of credits for 'ecosystem services'.
A new U.S. Department of Agriculture office to assess the environmental benefits of agriculture and determine their value for carbon credit trading has been announced by Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer. The Office of Ecosystem Services and Markets and a board to assist in the development of "technical guidelines for values" that they hope will promote markets for ecosystem services."
The Rudd Government could take a lesson from Barak Obama. “Our nation’s farms, ranches, and forests provide goods and services that are vital to society—natural assets we call ‘ecosystem services’,” Mr Schafer said. “The Office of Ecosystem Services and Markets will enable America’s agriculture producers to better compete, trade their services around the world, and make significant contributions to help improve the environment.” . The first ecosystem services to be examined will be carbon sequestration. The make up of the board doesn't fill us with confidence that they have the market 'smarts' to do the job. The board, chaired by the USDA secretary, will include the secretaries of Interior, Energy, Commerce, Transportation, and Defense; the chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors; the director of the White House Office of Science and Technology; the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency; and the commander of the Army Corps of Engineers.

STOP STOP PRESS!!!! 2% was wishful thinking

It is with apologies that we announce: WE THOUGHT IT WAS 0.2%/YR! but it appears we were wrong.
It appears that it was 0.2% over 10 years!

"This increase is greater than most carbon modelling suggests," said Dr Peter Fisher, head of the Victorian DPI's soil carbon unit, as he reported that a series of trials in VIC and NSW revealed that 0.2% increase in soil carbon in 10 years was possible.

The fact that the relationship between soil carbon and soil structure, porosity, water economy, and yield had to be established scientifically for Australian soils might surprise some, but it very timely.

We need to know a lot more about the study to understand the slight increase in soil C:

What were the land management techniques used to return the organic matter to the soil?Stubble? Stubble processed through animals? Stubble ploughed in? Compost? Each of these will have a different effect on carbon scores, depending on the availability of the organic matter to the microbes. And the state of health of the microbial community will affect the incorporation of the organic matter. Highly active soil will see stubble disappear in a few days. Inactive 'dead' soil will have stubble oxidise, with very little being incorporated. This would affect your carbon readings.
What other management techniques were in use on the paddocks? Cover crop? Fertiliser? Pesticides? Herbicides? Minimum Till? No Till?
What was the history of the paddocks? (Ie. a paddock which had been under perennial pasture until recently would be in the early stages of rapidly losing significant carbon while a long-cropped paddock would have plateaued at a low carbon point.
The models: how old is the data on which they were built?
Given what we know about microbial communities and their frontline role in manufacturing carbon, was there any analysis done of the paddocks to ascertain their background level of microbial activity before the trials commenced.

Dr Fisher thinks the 0.2% could stretch to 0.4% in 10 years. Even then, that could be worth $1000/ha.

CONGRATULATIONS MINISTER BURKE

The Kyoto Rules are not fair for the farm sector, says Tony Burke. He is putting pressure on the Minister for Climate Change Penny Wong to instruct some of the highly intelligent people who lead her team to apply their minds to solving Agriculture's lose-lose situation. Contrary to received wisdom, Moses didn't bring the Kyoto Rules down from the Mountain. The most important words in the National Carbon Offset Standard Discussion Paper say it all: "ALL STANDARDS AND LEGISLATION ARE SUBJECT TO REVISION." Tony Burke appeals to the Kyotocrats to change the rules to 'match new science' that indicates that 'well-managed pastures should be recognised for their carbon storage ability.'
The Carbon Coalition has the following advice for lawmakers:
1. Soil carbon deserves 'special status' because it has unique characteristics and a unique role to play in the Climate Change response.
2. Only soil carbon has the capability, critical mass, and deployment to absorb a high proportion of the existing emissions or 'the Legacy Load" which is driving the erratic climate behaviour. Soil - via billions of hectares of photosynthetic processors (plants) - can operate on a 25 year rule for holding that carbon it has captured, largely due to uncertainty.
3. Permanence: The 100 year rule (all sinks must guarantee to hold carbon for a century) is clearly a fiction as the world would not plan a massive break out of GHG in precisely 100 years time. The 25 year period enables science to develop containment and/or cycling techniques for managing soil carbon, via technologies such as biochar.
4. Additonality (the rule that says anyone who has made the change to land management already is ruled out, anyone who has yet to make the change but is surrounded by land managers who have is ruled out, anyone who doesn't desparately need the money from credits is ruled out, anyone who has their land management changes funded or part funded by government agencies is ruled out, etc.) The reason why we want everyone treated equally well is because we need them all to be sequestering as much carbon as possible for as long as possible. When you want people to act quickly to change the habits of a lifetime and stick with it until it becomes second nature, you don't want to surround them with bitter and twisted naysayers.

The Greens don't like carbon credits for farmers, on the grounds that farmers shouldn't be paid for what they should be doing anyway. This dangerous moral supremist attitude signals ignorance of the true situation in agriculture.

Thanks to Tony Burke, sanity has a voice in cabinet.

Carbon Coalition Couple in Christmas Coverage

Thanks to Rural Press and Science and Environment Writer Matthew Cawood for the following article, beautifully written. What a surprise! Matt is one of the few members of the media who does his homework and knows what's what and who's who in the zoo. And what a zoo. Rural Press and The Land in particular have served their readers well in the soil carbon issue, reporting both sides of the argument. It has also been very well balanced about the Climate Change issue, giving the sceptics good coverage. (BTW: The Carbon Coalition does not insist on belief in Climate Change. Just believe in the market - the biggest commodity market ever.)

Don't even think about it: $770 per hectare per year for soil carbon

A 2% increase in soil carbon over 10 years, as reported by Dr Peter Fisher after a series of paired-site trials in NSW and VIC, translates into$770/ha/year (at 30cms, BD 1.4 and $25/tC). Not a bad bonus on top of the production you get from carbon rich soils. Yet some people are cautioning landholders against thinking about the money. They say: focus on the co-benefits (soil health, soil structure, water holding capacity, tilth, available nutrients, active microbial community, etc.) Don't focus on the money. Don't demand access to soil carbon credits.

Clearly those who give this counsel must have secure incomes; they cannot be farmers. And we invite those who argue this line to consider the ethics of asking landholders to acquiese meekly to the following injustice:

1. The Goverment has declared that Agriculture of a major emitter (based on what evidence we can't be sure, because the Government also claims it is impossible to measure emissions at the enterprise level, which is why Agriculture won't be included in the emissions trading scheme).
2. As a major emitter, we have to pay our fair share, but the "point of obligation" is set outside the industry and we pay higher costs and commissions as a result.
3. We cannot pass on these rises at the saleyards, as one government speaker suggested.
4. We do, however, have the ability to grow soil carbon - that is, our enterprise operates as a 'sink' as well as being a 'source'.
5. However, the same difficulty that the government has encountered with enterprise emissions bedevils soil carbon: difficult to measure.
6. Meanwhile the foresters (who don't measure carbon, but 'estimate' it) turn farms into forests for a profit.

What's fair and decent and equitable and ethical about that?

We ask Government officials and industry body executives to put the same effort into solving the soil carbon dilemma as has been put into denying that soil carbon could be grown in Australia (proved wrong), can be grown but only slowly (proved wrong), is too expensive to grow because of the price of nitrogen fertiliser (proved wrong) and isn't worth the money (proved wrong).

We ask all the people with secure jobs with executive salaries, who don't rely on the weather for their livelihood, and who are in a position to influence the debate about soil carbon credits, to consider what they are doing to farm families and rural communities by denying them this opportunity. At least make the effort to find out the facts about soil carbon, instead of relying on out-of-date reports.

FICTION: The Soil Carbon lobby quotes outrageous amounts of mioneyfor soilcarbon credits.
FACT: many people don't understand how we come to those high figures. When calculating the returns on soil carbon, you must multiply the carbon percentage increase by 3.67 to bring it to Carbon Dioxide Equivalent? We grow Carbon, but we trade Carbon Dioxide Equivalent units.

FICTION: Farmers could be induced to make a big mistake with soil carbon.
FACT: We caution landholders against committing their available land 100% to carbonfarming. We advise them to start small - with 100-200ha and learn the ropes that way.

FICTION: If there was any truth in it, they'd have scientific profof. But the science says we are wrong.
FACT: The main reason science has not been able to verify our findings about soil carbon for the past 2 years is because little work was done in the field; soil science has been defunded in the past decade, university courses closed, academic positions lost - and in the words of Michael Robinson, head of Land & Water, 'the science is lagging the politics'. There were no carbon farmers in the 1970s and early 1980s when most of the research was done.

FICTION: They are making up 'witches brews' and burying cow horns with compost in them. Hardly scientific.
FACT: What were dismissed as witches brews are compost teas, biodynamic preparations and other soil inoculants. These are barely understood by science, yet farmers using them are measuring and registering huge increases in soil health indicators, including carbon. Further, the real gains are being made in biological science, largely neglected in recent years in an industry where physics and chemistry predominate. It is the microbial communities that make the carbon. The soil physics and chemistry contribute by either making life easy or hard for microbes. And land management can affect all of them. But biology is the pointy end of the process. And not much is known about it in most places.

Here is an example of how this knowledge gap affects scientific research: Every carbon farmer knows that the composition of your microbial community will determine the outcome of soil performance. If you are playing with an incomplete deck, you cannot win. But how many scientific studies of soil performance start with a soil biology analysis of the plot concerned? Any? And how often is this reported as part of the background to the study's findings?

SO the next time you are told something about the 'potential' of Australian soils to sequester carbon, ask them what was the microbial count? Amen.

THE INTERNATIONAL YEAR OF PLANET EARTH: Soil Carbon Hoists The Flag

The Carbon Coalition activities for 2009 have been recognised as being officially part of the United Nations' International Year of Planet Earth. The aim of the Year is to foster outreach and research activities with the single purpose of raising worldwide public and political awareness of the potential of Earth sciences for improving the quality of life and safeguarding the planet, making it a better, safer, healthier and wealthier place for our children and grandchildren.
Carbon Coalitions events and activities which will carry the IYPE logo include the 2009 Carbon Farming Expo & Conference, a global webcast multimedia virtual conference connecting soil carbon specialists across the world, the launch of a mega-website, and smaller events around the nation. Of course, the world famous Carbon Cockie Competition (which is going national) will also come under the IYPE.

The International Year of Planet Earth was initiated by the International Union of Geological Sciences and the United Nations
Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). The Year also enjoys the full political support of 192 UN countries. By the end of 2008, National Committees have been established in 76 countries and regions in the world.
One of the 10 themes for the Year is "Soil: Earth' Living Skin". The Carbon Coalition has already featured members of one of the major partner organisations, the International Union of Soil Sciences. Keynote speakers at the 2008 Carbon Farming Expo & Conference included Professor Rattan Lal and Professor Alex McBratney, both of whom were awarded the highest honours by the IUSS.
Rattan Lal, director of Ohio State's Carbon Management and Sequestration Center and a professor with the School of Environment and Natural Resources, was the recipient of the 2006 Liebig Applied Soil Science Award. Named in memory of German scientist Justus von Liebig -- known as the “father of the fertilizer industry”.Alex McBratney was awarded the Webster Medal 2006 18th World Congress of Soil Science. Alex. is Professor of Soil Science and Pro-Dean in the Faculty of Agriculture, Food & Natural Resources at the University of Sydney. He was instrumental in the setting up of the Working Group (now commission ) on Pedometrics and the new Working Group on Digital Soil Mapping.
About this logo: In 2002 the German Ministry of Education and Research in 2002 instigated the very successful Jahr der Geowissenschaften. The logo used in the national event forms the basis of the International Year logo, by kind permission of the German Ministry. This consists of an inner circle (red) representing the solid Earth, then the biosphere in green and the hydrosphere in dark blue, above which is the pale blue atmosphere, all constituents of the Earth System.

STOP PRESS: CARBON COALITION WELCOMES PETER FISHER'S HISTORIC FINDINGS ON SOIL C % INCREASE

:
"This increase is greater than most carbon modelling suggests," said Dr Peter Fisher, head of the Victorian DPI's soil carbon unit, as he reported that a series of trials in VIC and NSW revealed that 2% increase in soil carbon in 10 years was possible. This figure was disputed by conventional scientists at the first Carbon Farming Conference a little over a year ago when Coalition Council Member Col Seis reported it. The GRDC funded the trials.
At the time the GRDC's relentless Allan Umbers was all over the media selling the message that our degraded soils could not sequester significant amounts of soil carbon.
We disageed with him on the meaning of the word 'significant'.
A 1% increase in soil carbon at 30cms and bulk density 1.4 represents 154 tonnes of CO2e sequestered per ha . Double it for 2%. Now multiply 308 tonnes CO2e by whatever the pric of carbon is: the Government is talking about $25 rising to $40/t.
My calculator tells me that this represents a total of $7,700 at $25 and $12,320 at $40. Per hectare.
Or between $770/ha and $1232/ha per year.

Now some might call that significant.

Dr Peter Fisher enters the Hall of Soil Carbon Heroes. Full report when data is available to us.
Meanwhile, start celebrating. The Walls are coming down.

CARBON FARMING CONFERENCE SLIDES NOW AVAILABLE

Thank you for your patience while we waited to load the slides onto a slide sharing service. You can find all the slides (except Professor Lal's - they are coming.) posted at either www.carbonfarming.net.au or http://carbonfarming.blogspot.com.

The DVD of all presentations at the Conference is available for purchase - telephone 02 6374 0329

For those interested, Michael Kiely Marketing is our carbon marketing consultancy. Our credentials can be found at www.michaelkielymarketing.com.au

Keep on Boxing!

There have been times in the past 12 months when we have been infected by doubts and listened to those who counselled us to be more accommodating and less critical and forthright. We need to become more acceptable to institutions and organisations because we need to source financial assistance in order to continue campaigning. So we face the ultimate dilemma: stop being so effective on behalf of our constituents: the farm families that make Australian Agriculture what it is. And I see my 6 and 2-year-old grandsons and think: "What can I do?" And I remember a message sent to me via a friend from fellow Parkinsonian Muhammad Ali: "Keep on boxing."

Thanks to the fair-minded people in the media who gave soil carbon a fair go.
Thanks to the politicians who gave us the time of day and asked questions in the House and Committee hearings for us.
Thanks to the scientists who risked being see with us at public events. And to those who coach us and guide us.
Thanks to the executives from industry bodies who have given us the benefit of their counsel and insights.
Thanks to the faithful supporters who never say no and who give us the strength to continue.
Thanks to all the members who sent ideas and advice this year.
Thanks to those who made submissions and appeared before special hearings.
Thanks to anyone who was abused or denigrated on our behalf this year. (We can't always be there to accept it personally.)
Thanks to those who sent or spent money for us. God bless your purse or wallet that their contents may multiply.
Thanks to those who invited us to address your members to explain the soil carbon phenomenon and what the truth is.
Thanks to those organisations in the USA and New Zealand who invited us to work with you on the soil carbon challenge in your countries.
Thanks to the angels who speak for no fee at our conference.
Thanks to those visionaries who are helping us establish the soil carbon movement in the cities.
Thanks to the members of our grassroots 'circle', the originals, - Colin, David, Rick, Angus - who inspire by their daily lives.
Thanks to Christine who started the whole enterprise and continues to set the pace.
Thanks to the new generation of soil carbon entrepreneurs, the microbial men and women.
Thanks to the sponsors and supporters who contributed to the financial health of the movement.
Thanks to those who carry the flame in other parts of the country that we can't get to.
Thanks to those who work inside government bodies but who make a fantastic contribution by keeping us connected with reality.
Thanks to the countless 'moles' who send us sensitive and insensitive information.
Thanks to the marketplace insiders who feed us information and set up meeting with useful connections.
Thanks to (.......) (Here insert youself, for reading this blog.

If not you, who?

If not now, when?

Thoughts for Thinkers

These pearls we found during the year. They are yours to use and enjoy...

Live for tomorrow forever

“Live as though you were going to die tomorrow.
Farm as though you were going to live forever.”

19th century English saying


Civilisation and soil


“There is an indispensable agricultural link between the superstructure of a complex civilisation and the soil… The chief product of the farm is the persons who constitute that link and they are the most important agricultural resource for our national health and good character.”

Johnson D. Hill, Roots In The Soil



To Lead

“Governments cannot lead.
They can only follow.

Environmental Groups cannot lead.
They can only react.

Only the People can lead.

The Soil Carbon Manifesto


The earth lives

“In our time, the depersonalised, lifeless concept of soil still predominates… [There is] a need to revive the long-dormant feeling [that] the earth lives in and through human agriculture… Human agriculture is part of the life of the earth… is, in short, a natural activity, properly emergent within many of the ecosystems in which the human species is found. To speak this way is to take the earth, the soils, the waters as living, if not animated, and to understand this life is to seek… the spirit of the soil.”

Paul B. Thompson, The Spirit of the Soil


Can’t see for complexity

“The complexity of large agricultural systems encourages a reductionist approach to study and management that precludes observation of large-scale effects.”

Robert L. Zimdahl, Agriculture’s Ethical Horizon

The Ethics of Soil Carbon

The ethics of denying the farmer access to the potential soil carbon offsets they could use to meet their methane and nitrogen GHG liability are questionable. The ethics of denying the entire community the potential volumes of sequestration that the world's 5.5bn hectares of agricultural soil could secure bear thinking about. The ethics of those in high places who do not move to stop the fillibustering and obstacle shuffling and make a sincere attempt to understand the emergent properties of soil carbon and find a way to free it to prove its capabilities, they are urgently in need of inspection. Just who is protecting whom? And from what?

Caring for Country, not caring for you

The Caring For Our Country program could have been designed to defeat the cause of soil carbon offset trading. It seeks to encourage farmers to become Carbon Farmers, but forfeit their rights to trade by falling foul of the Additionality provisions of the Kyoto rules and by failing to insist that they be baselined so their soil carbon increases can be recorded.
Farmers are not being warned that if they make the change in land management for reasons other than sequestering carbon – such as the co-benefits like soil health, better water usage, higher production, etc. – they rule themselves out of the offset market. The profit motive could achieve many of the goals and targets set for NRM agencies. At no cost to the taxpayer. Polluter pays.
But that would be wrong. Far from replacing them, Carbon Trading would assist CMA’s to achieve their targets. And it will free CMAs to pursue other targets, free resources that would otherwise be tied up. However there is one more critical reason why CMAs should look forward to the day when soil carbon can be traded: it will create a generation of farmers who understand the NRM principles. It will establish a ‘farm ethic’ of sorts, or the seeds of one may be planted. So CMA officers will be dealing with educated farmers, who understand the value they can deliver. Bloody marvellous!

An ethic of farming

“What we are after is an ethic of farming, a philosophy of agriculture, with particular attention to agriculture’s impact upon and integration with the wider natural world.

“This philosophy is needed as much by those who eat as by those who farm. Food consumers see too little of farming to form an idea of agriculture. They demand traits and characteristics in their food that have little relation to its origins and production.

“The act of eating is split between the metaphors of refuelling at the pump, and pleasing the senses as one might at a concert or museum. Nearly gone is the spirit of raising food and eating it as an act of communion with some larger whole.”



Paul B. Thompson, The Spirit of the Soil

So many fortune tellers in science

There are many in Agriculture who declare that the “potential” for soil carbon as a long term commodity market is small.

In this case the estimation of ‘potential’ involves prediction of the future, an activity which cannot be scientific and of which scientists are not capable. In a version of the “Myth of the Ancient Soils”, these people, among them highly respected scientists, declare the “potential” to be small when a combination of factors are considered:

1. the cost of measurement is high
2. the rate of sequestration is low
3. the price is low

“Potential” in this context is a prediction of the upper limit of soil carbon’s performance. Those who make these claims do not have any evidence on which to base them because they are speaking about a time in the future and about issues of which they have no special expertise.

1. The cost of measurement in a market context does not yet exist. The market has not started. The CCX market does not have a high cost of measurment. There are three factors which can influence the costs of measurement: One. Innovation – new ideas can never be predicted. Two. Competition – between suppliers of measurement services which is very likely to be the case once the market opens. Three. The cost of measurement is relative to the price per tonne of CO2e. The market is currently operating without the world’s 3 biggest emitters, and even now there is a shortage of fungible carbon for trading. The cost structure of every new market is distorted in its early days – eg. PCs, mobile phones, air travel, etc.

2. The rates of sequestration are low when scientists have studied them (until recently). They are higher when they occur on ‘whole of farm’ contexts that more closely simulate the true environment within which the soil carbon dynamic takes place. And they are much higher when soil biology is the variable used to make a difference.

3. The price is likely to increase dramatically when the demand more than triples upon the entry of the USA (first) and then China and India.

Some scientists have assumed the role of market economists and futurists, tasks they are not equipped to perform. There can be only one fact about the future of which we can be sure: The FUTURE will not look like the PAST or the PRESENT.

Don't blame Agriculture, Blame yourself

“Historically, farming is the single biggest cause of environmental degradation…” Paddock to Plate: Food, Farming & Victoria's Progress to Sustainability. The Future Food and Farm Project Background Paper. Australian Conservation Foundation, Melbourne.2008.*

It is common to find Agriculture described as the greatest contributor to environmental degradation in Australia. This is unfair to the land managers accused of committing the acts which undeniably damaged the natural resource base of the Nation. Two other parties must stand in the dock beside the farmer for this action: the Consumer and the Government.

Consumers: People who rely on agriculture for their food and sustenance, yet do not understand the agency-principal relationship that they as consumers have with food producers. No damage would have been done to the environment had the community not needed food and clothing from landholders. And the damage that has been done would have been less intensive had land managers not been forced to over-work the land in response to the low prices they are expected to take.
Governments: During the period of expansion of Australia’s agricultural base, Governments encouraged the clearing of millions of hectares of brigalow, mulga and other native vegetation species. In fact, it was often a condition of leases that the land be cleared and brought into production quickly. Further, if Australian farmers have mismanaged the soils by bad decisions, their government advisers who encouraged them should bear much of the responsibility.
Governments should acknowledge their role in environmental degradation in the past and the potential that such advice could cause damage now and in future.
Commentators who depict the farmer and grazier as the ‘problem’ often express sympathy for “our farmers” and see the agriculturalist as a victim of climate and ideas inherited from their parents, without considering their own contribution to the loss of community assets, ie. the natural resource base. Governments and environmental bodies, in many cases unaware of the primary producer’s dilemma, can be seduced into thinking that they will solve the ‘problem’ of Agriculture by forcing ‘non-viable’ producers off the land and/or by legislating a ‘duty of care’ to enforce a land management ideal. The slogan used to be “Get Big Or Get Out”. Now it is “Get Sustainable or Get Out” – entrenching the structural inequities in the system.
Ideally, those making decisions about Agriculture – including policy, land use recommendations, and the design of scientific research projects – should be required to have lived and worked on the land for long enough to understand the issues or undertake to engage meaningfully in rural affairs (as Tony Burke did on coming into the Portfolio).

*ACF is conducting a campaign against agriculture which should be watched carefully. It is able to get traction for its simpistic solutions because those they seek to convince - city-based decision-makers - know less than they do about what really goes on out here.

Imagining the Future (Preamble to Response to National Soils Strategy paper)

Planning for the future is like trying to put a spacecraft on the moon. You
don’t aim for the moon. You aim for where it will be when you get there.
The same goes for soils. A National Strategy for Soils needs to be designed to
take into account the likely presence of Soil Carbon as a Tradable Offset on
either or both the voluntary and compliance markets.
The need to imagine the future was highlighted by the Commission into 9/11
which concluded that the main factor in the success of the terrorist attacks on
the USA was a ‘failure to imagine the future’ on behalf of the US security
forces. Such a failure is common among planners. They imagine that the
future is the same as the present. It’s not. It can’t be.
The following are a few thoughts on what the future might look like in a Post
Soil Carbon world. A world in which farmers and landholders are encouraged
to grow soil carbon and paid fairly for what they grow. These are not
inevitable outcomes, but potential ones, based on scientific reports describing
how soil carbon behaves.
1. Many NRM objectives would be met due to the groundcover
requirement for carbon farming. Eg. erosion, stream turbidity, crusting,
etc. It would be like every farmer had joined a LandCare Group. They
would.
2. Many soil conditions would be addressed: eg. revegetation and the use
of deep rooted native species would have an impact on hydrological
problems and reduce salination.
3. Reduced need for inputs (biocides, artificial fertlisers, etc.) would make
more enterprises financially viable.
4. Increased yields due to increased soil microbial activity would make
family farms more viable and rural economies more sound.
5. Revegetation and restoration of mid-story would encourage increased
species diversity of bird life.
6. New species emerge, some thought extinct, as biodiversity scores
increase.
7. The impact of Climate Change – increasing temperatures and reduced
rainfall – is buffered by a resilient farm landscape which holds more
moisture naturally and makes more effective use of rainfall than before.
8. Enterprise and employment opportunities will be created in the new
fields of soil sampling, composting, cultivation equipment leasing,
fencing, water infrastructure, compost tea production, natural fertilizer
sales and consulting, grass seed harvesting and sales, dung beetle
supplies, etc.
9. The opportunity to achieve a premium price in markets for ‘carbon
neutral’ produce exists currently.
10. Farm gate sales of soil carbon offsets into the retail market can give
producers the opportunity for building relationships with non-rural
families, creating potential farm stay, etc. involvements.
11. More children of farmers elect to stay on the land as the terms of trade
have improved.
12. There is greater respect for the farmer in the wider community because
of awareness of the Climate Change role they play.
13. Soil science becomes the hottest course on campus once its social,
ecological, economic, and heroic characteristics become well known.
14. Articles appear in Women’s Weekly and tabloid newspapers about it.
15. Soil science, especially microbiology, is taught in primary schools.
It is always easier to imagine bad things happening in the future, especially
when all the agencies of government are busy pumping out negative estimates
of the future and worst-case scenarios of scientific predictions. Bad things
never happen as you expect them to. It’s the ones that you don’t expect that
do the most damage.
It behoves all of us to indulge less in negativity and hand-wringing and practice
more ‘possibility thinking’. Innovation, invention and new ideas cannot be
predicted or factored into estimates of the future.
“The future ain’t what it used to be.”

The White Paper

Reasons to be cheerful: 1, 2, 3.

“Policy position 6.21 - The Government is disposed to include agriculture emissions in the Scheme by 2015. Commencing in 2009, the Government will undertake a work program in consultation with the agriculture industry to enable a decision in 2013 on coverage of agriculture emissions in 2015.”

2015 is 7 years away. 7 years. That’s all we have left of the 10 years Sir Nicholas Stern gave us to do something serious. And what have we done? We have had meetings and consultations and hundreds of submissions prepared and read and produced coloured papers with lots of writing in them, none of which will absorb one gram of CO2e from the atmosphere. The funny/absurd side of this white paper is that it spends the first 200 pages wringing its hands over how serious the problem is. Then it turns to an eccentric way of doing nothing much, except getting in the way of those who can do something.

Is the Rudd Government discriminating against white farmers, like Mugabe?

“The Government will facilitate the participation of Indigenous land managers in carbon
markets and will further investigate the potential for offsets from reductions in emissions
from savanna burning and will consult with Indigenous Australians on forestry opportunities.”

The biggest white lie in the White Paper

The following is plainly untrue and if this document is tabled in Parliament the Minister should be fired for misleading Parliament. “A shift towards less emissions-intensive activities, including farm forestry, is an intended consequence of the Scheme as it would reflect an efficient allocation of resources taking into account the carbon price. However, as noted above new forests are likely to be established on more marginal or less productive agricultural land and will not undermine food security.” Penny Wong’s Forests are occupying the best land in many places in Victoria and South Australia.

In Wonderland, things mean what you want them to mean

Ask yourself, as you read the following two paragraphs, how they can be so sure we as an industry emit 16% of the nation’s emissions, when they admit that it is too hard to measure farm emissions. If that 16% came up as a back-of-the-envelope estimation, I want to see that envelope.

STATEMENT ONE: Agriculture emissions consist mainly of methane and nitrous oxide from livestock and cropping and make up 16 per cent of Australia’s emissions. This is Australia’s second largest source of emissions.

STATEMENT TWO: Estimating agriculture emissions is complex. These emissions are highly variable in response to management practices and climatic conditions. For example, cattle breeds and feed types in tropical and subtropical regions differ from those in temperate regions, generating different amounts of methane. Nitrous oxide emissions from soils in major cereal-growing regions vary geographically and over time, according to rainfall, soil types and fertiliser application rates.”

Remember this:

“The Queensland Farmers’ Federation questioned whether the Carbon Pollution Reduction
Scheme was the best way to reduce carbon emissions in the farming sector. It called on the
Federal Government to consider more cost-effective alternatives such as accelerated uptake of
best management practices.” Here read ‘handcuffs’.

Meet FAO again, On The Road To Santa Fe

Soil carbon specialists from North and South America, China, and Australia met this week in Santa Fe to increase the pressure on the issue of soil carbon sequestration, especially in grasslands (temperate and tropical savannas and rangelands) in the run-up to Copenhagen 2009. Again the FAO was represented, this time by Lesley Lipper, a senior environmental economist in the agricultural and economics division. She is a very imaginative, focussed person with great vision. The 3-day event was kicked off by Professor Lal, whom I have seen present three times in the past month, and he has crafted a presentation for each audience. (Prodigious output, and all of it excellent.). Shannon Horst of Holistic Management International was our host and the Blackstone Ranch Institute made the meeting possible. Executive Director of the Institute, John Richardson, formerly worked with UNICEF. The Institute funds 'vital strategic dialogues at the inception or break out stage of major social innovation.' Also attending is our friend Andrew Fynn who we met in California whn travelling to the FAO-sponsored Conservation farming and Carbon Sequestration meeting in Indiana. Andrew has "JUST DO IT" tattooed on the inside of his eye-lids (or appears to). He is hurrying to find a solution to the usual problems so he can kick start the trading. The "Just Do It" strategy is finding favour. Andy Wilkes, from ICRAF-China, an agroforestry offset development operation, is determined to conquer China which we agree is the lynchpin for the rest of the world falling into step. Maria-Christina Amezquita has a brilliant presentation on the performance of soils in several South American countries. Peter Donovan is the brains behind the Soil Carbon Coalition and is an advocate from Oregon. (Great name.)
This is a smart bunch of people.

I stumbled into a nest of scientists who believe that sol carbon is a function of ecological forces and this mysterious pathway will lead us to better things. Greg McCarty, Rich Conant, and Michael Ebinger have a lot to offer us.

JUST ANOTHER BRICK IN THE WALL?

The dreary truth emerged during a breakout session that no matter how smart we are, the same old problems will dog us forever: Measurement, Additionality, and Permanence. People who cannot see these as the foundations of the barriers against soil carbon are destined to bang their heads fruitlessly against them. The rules were not made for soils. They will never accommodate soil carbon. It cannot conform to the bureaucratic demand. Yet we have proved that soil carbon sequestration is the single solution for the next 30 years, reducing the GHG at a dramatic rate once most of the available. I make my argument clear, although it is not yet Carbon Coaltion Policy, that the three problems aren't developed yet.

HRH Charles, Prince of Wales, call it a Soils Crisis

HRH Charles, Prince of Wales, sounded the alarm on soils in the Times:
"When you consider that in one pinch of soil there are more microbes than there are people on the planet, you have to ask what irreversible damage do we do to that delicate ecosystem - the six inches of top soil that sustains all life on Earth? The soil's health is our health. Yet we have eroded it and poisoned it and failed to replace lost nutrients to such a degree that a recent UN survey found that in just 50 years we have lost a third of the world's farmable soil. That is hardly a sustainable rate of exploitation."

AT LAST SOME SANITY ON SOILS: Minister Burke call for Kyoto change

Minister for Agriculture Tony Burke is calling for changes to Kyoto to allow soil carbon to be recognised and rewarded. "Kyoto as the initial agreement was important but we should not pretend that it was a perfect landing place," he told Lucy Sculthorp in The Land. "The fact that trees get counted but other green things don’t when it comes to carbon sinks we know is scientifically wrong. You don’t have to get past year eight at school science before you know that it's the 'green bits' that are doing the photosynthesis and yet well-managed pasture doesn’t get counted, but trees do." Mr Burke said the government would set down a "framework" to be part of a global carbon pollution reduction scheme which would put Australia's primary producers "on a much better footing than under the current accounting rules".
On 24 January a working group of the 2008 Carbon Farming Conference and Expo, organised by Carbon Farmers of Australia, released 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."
Tony Burke agreed that the current Kyoto rules are not fair for the farm sector, arguing there is no reason why well-managed pastures not be considered for their carbon storage capabilities.
The next international agreement on climate change, due to be thrashed out at Copenhagen in 2009, needed to match new science which would help bring more agricultural production into the carbon-capture fold, said the Minister."As we move through the international negotiations on climate change, there is a principle which helps in being part of the global solution and is a very good principle in the interests of agriculture as well. That is, to try as much as possible to get the accounting mechanisms internationally to match the science." (Good Science.)
"The Minister's announcement might have been coincidence, but I'd prefer to believe that Minister Burke is just very responsive," says Michael Kiely, Carbon Farmers of Australia.

Greens MP and Senator plead for DPI soil carbon research to continue

The following happened while the Carbon Farming Expo & Conference was underway - sparked by the event:
Media Release | Spokesperson Christine Milne
Monday 17th November 2008, 2:21pm
Australian Greens Deputy Leader and climate change spokesperson, Senator Christine Milne, said: "The best climate change strategy for rural and regional Australia is in learning how to keep more carbon in the soils - reducing our climate impact and building resilience to the warming that we've already caused."Enhancing soil carbon is being recognised globally as not only a great thing for improving productivity and building resilience in the face of climate change, but it is also potentially a huge opportunity to reduce the carbon emissions which cause climate change.
"It is stupid and short-sighted in the extreme for any government to be closing down a facility which has 75 years of data to back the new, exciting science around soil carbon... We have lost too many scientists from our research institutions who understand how carbon is stored in soils and how natural systems work. We cannot rely on the agribusiness sector which is putting huge pressures on farmers' margins as well as on soils. Instead of getting rid of scientists who understand soil carbon, we should be recruiting them again and increasing their research funding.

19 November 2008
Greens MP calls on Government to reprioritise Soil Carbon Sequestration
Greens MP Ian Cohen, in coincidence with this week’s Soil Carbon Expo, is calling upon the Minister for Primary Industries to cull government funding for the Clean Coal fund and reinject the funds into soil carbon sequestration and agricultural based GHG emission reduction projects. “Last week I put a motion before the Legislative Council that the NSW Government acknowledge the emission reduction capacity of New South Wales’ agricultural sector and start prioritising this sector instead of subsidising clean coal projects” says Mr Cohen.
“NSW Department of Primary Industries has provided $500,000 to the National Centre for Rural Greenhouse Gas Research compared with $50 million dollars already committed for clean coal projects in NSW.”
“Why is the NSW Government disproportionately subsidising Clean Coal research for companies awash with record profits off the back of a sustained resource boom while leaving the agricultural sector, battling through an extended drought, with bread crumbs.”
“Some of the world's leading soil scientists suggest that more regenerative farming and grazing practices in Australia would sequester upwards of 927 million tonnes of CO2 a year and that such practices on 5 per cent of Australia's grazing land could offset this country's total greenhouse gas emissions.”
“Instead of acknowledging my repeated calls for increased funding in Parliament, the Minister has closed the Glenn Innes research facility which has undertaken extensive research into soil carbon and crop rotation.”
“If Alberta, Canada, home of the environmentally damaging Oil Sands can introduce a voluntary carbon offset market which includes 9 different agricultural emission reduction methods, then NSW can surely do the same. Albertan farmers who have adopted reduced tillage practices to reduce Co2 release from soils into the atmosphere have received $6,000 dollars on average from a carbon purchase agreement with a provincial electricity generator EPCOR.”

URGENT COMMENTS ON NATIONAL SOILS POLICY NEEDED BY DEC.8TH!

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).

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

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

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