What stops small farms from cashing in on carbon?
Small-scale carbon farming leaves a lot to be desired.
“We can automate nearly everything, can’t we? We can fly to the Moon, but we can’t make one of these methods simple enough for a farmer on their own to undertake.”
Director of Carbon Farmers of Australia Louisa Kiely says there’s never been a better time to sell carbon offsets – prices are soaring. But while agricultural land remains one of the most effective sinks of carbon dioxide and farmers are eager, there are still plenty of potholes in the back paddock.
“Even without a government policy of net zero by 2050, every company with shareholders understands that they must be responsible in the face of this known risk,” Kiely says.
In Australia, farms have a range of ways to store carbon that earns credits, including planting native trees or conserving native forests, increasing carbon in soil, and reducing herd methane.
The accounting and measurement on each of these are thorough: the regulator wants to ensure that each tonne of carbon sold is genuinely being stored.
According to Kiely, it’s this measurement and accounting that holds small farms back: “Everything is about numbers and scale.”
Kiely says a public software platform that could estimate earnings – a sort of reverse-climate-footprint calculator – would significantly increase uptake.
“[We need] a software platform. So all that I do, as a farmer, is type in things like how many cows I have, my land area, […] and it spits out a number.”