A LOCALLY founded, WA-based company is seeking to become the first to generate Australian Carbon Credit Units (ACCUs) from existing best practice soil amelioration and revegetation activities in the WA Wheatbelt.
TerraWise is aiming to give broadacre farmers the opportunity to capitalise on the highly anticipated carbon market which, until now, has seen historical research and development investment directed toward projects in accountable carbon sources not aligned with current broadscale best practice management.
The project will be registered with the Commonwealth Energy Regulator (CER) and enable farmers to diversify income while creating significant positive and lasting environmental benefits to farmland and surrounds.
In order to realise its goal, TerraWise brought together the diverse expertise of environmental consultancy New Growth, farm advisory and management group Planfarm and agri-investor Seabourn.
TerraWise and Planfarm director Eric Hall said TerraWise was formed to provide farmers the ready means to realise commercial returns from existing broadacre farming best practices of soil amelioration and revegetation that result in carbon sequestration.
"Previously this has been out of the reach for many broadacre farmers due to the complexities involved in registering and monitoring their activities for the purposes of the CER," he said.
"The initiative is a game changer for carbon farming in the broadacre farming sector."
TerraWise and New Growth director Ben Fitzpatrick has led the groundbreaking work to identify the methodologies, modelling and measurement of carbon sequestration resulting from soil amelioration and revegetation activities.
"This project enables individual farmers the ability to realise financial gains from best practice farming activities in a win-win outcome for farmers and the environment," Dr Fitzpatrick said.
"Farmers benefit through diversifying income, reducing inputs and addressing common issues such as soil erosion, the environment benefits through biodiversity gains while the broader community benefits through job creation and developing viable methods for offsetting WA's carbon emissions."
TerraWise is inviting broadacre farmers who plan to undertake soil amelioration and activities to submit non-binding expressions of interest by January 29.
The submission can be made via terra-wise.com.au and there will also be a series of online question and answer sessions for interested farmers to ask further questions.