Leveraging the carbon farming framework to increase drought resilience of farms
By Anne Coote – Climate Friendly’s Program Manager, Head of Agroecology
Background
Climate Friendly are a leading Australian carbon farming service provider with extensive experience in supporting landholders to develop a carbon farming project on their land. The carbon farming projects are designed to generate Australian Carbon Credit Units (ACCUs) by implementing a management change that supports carbon cycling and sequestration in soil and vegetation. The projects are conducted in accordance with the Federal Government’s carbon farming framework, which includes running the project in accordance with a specific Method or set of guidelines to ensure integrity and compliance with the Government legislation.
In addition to generating ACCUs, Climate Friendly’s landholder partners can also increase their productivity and profit by focusing on soil health and improving vegetation. Having a carbon farming project can also help farmers better manage risks like drought.
Project
Climate Friendly have established a project under the Future Drought Fund Natural Resource Management Drought Resilience Program, to increase understanding of how carbon farming activities can affect drought resilience. The aim of the project is to test how carbon farming activities can build drought resilience, and whether carbon farmers can receive an ACCU (Australian Carbon Credit Unit) premium that recognises the enhanced drought resilience of their farm business.
The project consists of three components:
National survey
Testing of carbon farming for drought resilience activities through landholder participation in on farm activities
Development of a drought resilience ‘standard’.
The project concludes in December 2022.
Landholder participation
Landholder participation for this project is focused within the North-West Local Lands Services region of NSW. Through an EOI process, five geographically spread mixed farming landholders were selected to participate to increase their knowledge, skills, and capacity to build drought resilience into their farming businesses.
As landscape rehydration is fundamental to drought resilience, Climate Friendly partnered with Mulloon Consulting to support the landholders on ground activity to present and conduct farm assessments, developing a report which generates a conceptual ‘whole of farm‘ landscape rehydration design for implementation, as necessary.
Bootcamp
This was rolled out with the landholders attending a two-day ‘bootcamp’ at Burren Junction in July 2022. The Landscape Rehydration & Carbon Farming Bootcamp was a practical hands-on experience to assess aspects of landscapes which are barriers for water infiltration, soil health and overall management for carbon cycling. By understanding how to collect and retain water in their landscape, participants gained knowledge on how to build greater drought resilience into their management practices and business operations, whilst implementing a carbon farming activity at the same time.
Preliminary results to date indicate that all landholders in the project have varying degrees of landscape rehabilitation which could be implemented in a cost-effective way, to effectively influence water infiltration, the soil carbon cycle, productivity, profit, and the ability to participate in a carbon project. The type of rehabilitation recommended is dependent on the terrain and slope with all landscapes showing the signs of historic events of drought, bare soils, and management practices. The ability of landholders to implement adaptive use of livestock is proving to be a critical aspect of plan and vegetation recruitment, with both cattle and sheep playing a pivotal role in this process.
The good news is that changes in mindset, management practices and monitoring can go a long way to rehabilitating and rehydrating any landscape.
Activities
Climate Friendly’s working partnership with Mulloon Consulting has proved to be greatly beneficial to combine various skills to support the outcomes of this project. The landholders are currently working on their specific activities designed to demonstrate types of carbon farming activities that can be implemented to enhance future drought resilience. Examples of the activities include erosion works to repair and recommence the process of water retention, improving plant responses and diversity by adaptive managed grazing of livestock, pasture renovation, water budgets, improved use of technology, implementation of technology to forward plan for feed gaps and extended drier periods; and establishment of cover crops.
Case studies
Case studies are being developed for each landholder to show the diversity, but also the similarities which exist in all farming operations. The case studies will also show that by increasing knowledge, skills and confidence, simple changes that drive water infiltration and carbon cycling can make a substantial difference to building drought resilience for the future.