solution film looks at drought
❝We need to look at longer-term strategy and not just financial solutions. — Khory Hancock
Period, the soil carbon increased, the nutrient level increased.
“He’s got sheep there; he did an analysis on wool qualities and strength, that all increased. So his agricultural productivity, his ecological productivity was all increasing, despite the drought.
“And as all this increased, the rainfall was decreasing.”
CARBON FARMING
Mr Hancock spoke to Rural
Weekly just after delivering a presentation on biochar and seaweed farming for methane reduction at the Australia and New Zealand Biochar Conference on the Gold Coast.
“Although I am a scientist, I come and give an industry perspective – it’s generally well-received by trying to bridge the gap between industry and science,” he said.
He has been involved in carbon assessments on some of Australia’s largest land restoration projects, taking in sites from Cobar in NSW to Winton in Queensland.
“Primarily I work on carbon farming methodologies and ways we can move the industry forward, without relying on government funding for it, so that all these methodologies like soil carbon can become more viable,” he said.
“Currently the government is regulating price on that, so we need to swap to an international trading scheme and make it competitive.”
Mr Hancock feels it is vital we develop carbon farming as a regenerative practice for both soil and climate, in a way that supports viability and profitability for agricultural industries.
“Carbon farming is a way to draw down that carbon dioxide that is in the atmosphere causing climate change and to store it safely in our forests, our oceans and our soils and to make it profitable for our farmers by creating an industry around that,” he said.
His presentation focused around the potentiality of biochar in carbon farming and regenerative farming and of “blue carbon”.
BLUE CARBON
Mr Hancock is one of Australia’s pioneers in “blue carbon”, or seaweed farming.
He said Meat and Livestock Australia had a target in place to become carbon neutral by 2030 and was engaged with trials with CSIRO on feed lots.
“One of the ways they are looking at doing that is introducing seaweed into the cattle diet,” he said.
“It’s very exciting – one of those particular species of seaweed, if you introduce
2 per cent into their diet, it eliminates their methane emissions by 99 per cent.”
In response to that potential, Mr Hancock is in the process of developing a start-up, potentially with US seaweed farming expert Brian von Herzen, around creating “blue carbon” farms that have a triple action in sequestering carbon in sea beds, delivering cooler water from lower areas of the sea to the surface and providing fodder to service a lower-methane-emitting cattle industry.
“It has multiple benefits and just one of them is reducing methane emission through cattle feed so that you’ve basically got a green product,” he said.