National Carbon Farming Conference & Expo

Mulloon Institute’s CEO & Managing Director Carolyn Hall at the 10th National Carbon Farming Conference and Expo in Albury.

There was a real buzz in the air at Albury for the 10th National Carbon Farming Conference and Expo during May 2022. Carolyn Hall CEO Managing Director of the Mulloon Institute was warmly welcomed by key players in a rapidly expanding industry. Paris Capell, Mulloon’s Landscape Planner also attended the conference as part of her Agrifutures Horizon scholarship.

Louisa Keily from Carbon Farmers of Australia and Matthew Warnken from Agriprove brought together a remarkable range of speakers on all things carbon farming. The conference has expanded significantly over the past 10 years and reflects the growing interest in opportunities for carbon sequestration and the co-benefits, including building biodiversity when managing for soil health.

The conference also hosted an expo of organisations linked to the carbon farming industry. It was great to catch up with key partners and friends of Mulloon including RCS, Natures Equity, Carbon Link, the Maia Grazing team and Regen Farmers Mutual. Connections were also made with the Jennifer Lauber-Patterson Frontier Impact Group, Carbon 8 and the National Soils Advocate.

Great conversations were had during the breaks around the challenge and opportunity for landscape rehydration and carbon projects with friends of the Mulloon Institute across the industry and academia. It was great to catch up with Carmel Onions General Manager Agribusiness at Commonwealth Bank, Brad Tucker Director at Tucker Environmental, Professor Justin Borevitz  from the ANU Research School of Biology and Stuart Austin from Wilmot Cattle Co.

Some key learnings for the conference include that 10% of Australia’s landmass is currently in carbon projects. When baselining soil carbon depth really does matter to take account of the flux in soil carbon levels. Technology has moved at an amazing rate in the soil carbon space both in measurement and modelling and data validation. We learned about a carbon farming app and how blockchain, crypto and NFT (non-fungible tokens) will be used in the carbon market.

Carolyn Hall, CEO & Managing Director