"HOPEFULLY in the short-term I will build my farm's resilience with my soil and practices and produce better crops - in the long-term I hope I'm gaining carbon that's saleable for our kids."
Those words are from broadacre farmer David Mackie, one of three successful applicants who received a grant under the State government's $15 million Carbon Farming and Land Restoration Program Australian Carbon Credit Units (ACCU) Scheme.
Through the scheme the successful applicants' carbon credits are purchased up front and after a period of time, once the property is able to materialise those carbon credits, they pay back a portion of their carbon credits which equates to the initial amount of money loaned.
About 15 other voucher/project recipients travelled to David and Marnie Mackie's property near Glentromie, just north of New Norcia last Friday, to witness some of the soil carbon practices being implemented on their 1600 hectares of land, and to hear about the government's $1.077m investment to advance some of WA's carbon farming projects from Agriculture and Food Minister Alannah MacTiernan.
The Mackie's Undanooka Soil Carbon Project will receive $155,000 to sow a serradella legume species, a mix of canola and lupins, and a clover sub-storey crop to increase nitrogen fixation, root biomass and soil carbon to improve overall soil health and agricultural productivity.
David Mackie and his cousin Josh Mackie, a technical services manager for Gilmac Pty Ltd who also has a background in agricultural research and development, worked with Carbon West to establish the project, which is mediated by Australia's Clean Energy Regulator.
With an objective to draw down atmospheric carbon dioxide into their soil to assist in meeting Australia's greenhouse gas reduction target, the Mackies incorporated the use of legumes into their cropping system, with one of their strategies being to sow a legume 'partner' crop in addition to the primary crop.
"The legume maintains a lower profile than the main production crop and provides value by fixing nitrogen," Josh said.
"Potential outcomes include increased overall root mass, and biomass soil bacteria and fungi - sources of soil carbon.
"We feel there is a real need to test strategies considering the biological system and fit within the farming business.
"In trial areas we measure crop yield on the harvester and will increasingly focus on soil biology."
The visiting group inspected a 300 hectare paddock that has been used to assess the effects of placing compost or manure under the soil on crop yield, soil carbon and soil health.
As soil carbon projects require carbon to be increased over at least 25 years, with changes required to be observed deeper in the soil profile, David said he was conscious of the long-term nature of his commitment to creating a carbon farm.
"We're incorporating organic material, whether it be compost, manures or carbon pellets and we're going to move into doing some cover crops and some legume based, nitrogen fixing seeds and hopefully that will work out," David said.
"Our pig manure trial spot is about 10ha and we have three replicates of four different treatments, plus a ripping and non ripping, so there are quite a lot of samples there.
"The carbon pellet trial was done over 20ha with 36 different seeder rows, trialling six different treatments, while the compost was three different treatments at different rates over about 50ha."
So far the farm has had some positive results, with some small percentage increases in yields, as well as some more dramatic increases in some of their trials.
READ MORE:
"I'm looking forward to seeing how things evolve, as we will base our adoption of different methods on what we discover along the way," David said.
He said carbon farming was an exciting space to be working in, as everyone was learning, including staff from the Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development (DPIRD) who will collect data and information from his trials at designated points throughout the project.
"To other farmers I would say give it a go, be skeptical and know that it's not a short-term fix, but definitely try, because if you don't try you're not going to succeed," David said.
All up, the three soil carbon projects, with the two other recipients based in Katanning and Denbarker, will receive $417,000 in capital assistance and, together, will aim to generate an estimated 119,950 carbon credits over 25 years through the Australian Emissions Reduction Fund.
OTHER GREAT READS:
At the Mackie's farm, Ms MacTiernan also announced $10,000 vouchers had been awarded to 67 farmers through the new Carbon for Farmers Voucher Program, which aims to help recipients realise their potential to sequester carbon and contribute to the growing carbon market.
However the minister said carbon farming was only the department's "intermediate goal".
"The real goal we have is to see farming really get to the point where it is unleashing all of the power of the biological systems of nature," she said.
"We see carbon farming as being a vehicle and a source of income that can help farmers onto that journey of really getting the biology of the system working in a positive way for them."
Ms MacTiernan said she had never given up on the idea that, even in the lower rainfall areas, farmers could successfully accumulate and sequester carbon in their soil.
"At the Climate Paris Initiative back in 2015, it was calculated that just a 0.4 per cent increase in agricultural soils across the globe could actually account for 25pc of human induced carbon emissions," Ms MacTiernan said.
"So just thinking about that, if we can actually make this soil carbon work, not only are we making our carbon farming systems stronger, more resilient and less reliant on industrial inputs, but we can actually help deal with the issue of climate change."
Ms MacTiernan said the Carbon Farming and Land Restoration Program would be an invaluable research tool for the department in understanding what can happen in soil carbon accumulation in a range of landscape types.
With an increasing number of farmers coming on board and showing interest in the carbon farming space, Ms MacTiernan said it was an enormous opportunity to improve the science behind soil carbon projects and also achieve methodologies specific to WA.
However, with about 60 additional farmers also having shown interest in the Carbon for Farmers Voucher Program, the minister said there were only so many agronomists and agricultural scientists available in WA to conduct the land management strategies, so the work pipeline needed to be kept in a "manageable sequence".
"Whether or not they (the farmers) get to the point where they want to do the ACCU development, the important thing is there is going to be a focus on what their land management strategy should be long term," Ms MacTiernan said
She acknowledged that WA needed more agronomists and agricultural scientists specialising in the carbon farming space and said she was hopeful the voucher scheme would encourage further development in the sector.
"Already CBH has a 20pc segregation of crop for ESG (environmental, social and governance) services, so I think this expertise will build up and we are hoping that this provision of vouchers to farmers will help get more agronomists actually engaged and experienced in what's going on," Ms MacTiernan said.
"We have been running a series of master classes for farmers and agronomists on the learnings to date and are really trying to give them those skills."
While Ms MacTiernan said she would like to see soil carbon projects across 100pc of the Wheatbelt, in terms of tree farming, she said WA's farmers should be looking at least 10pc revegetation, and that it would not equate to less profitability for a farm.
"Not only do you get carbon credits, but there is also a great many co-benefit you can get from having the tree landscape - it improves localised rainfall and helps with the development of helpful predators for pests," she said.
