Phil Mulvey, Carbon Count CEO, expands further on the whitepaper, “Change at our feet – Australian agriculture’s role and responsibility in mitigating climate change”

ARR.News: The paper seems to be framed around ‘what could be done if …’  rather than ‘what can be done now’, yet recognises the urgency of the need for decarbonisation and so mitigation, including by carbon sequestration. Why wouldn’t this be seen by sceptical farmers as just a call for more money for policy development and research rather than help with practical, affordable, useful action that can be taken now?

Phil Mulvey: The paper addresses the root of the problem – the absence of solid policy frameworks that enable, encourage and equip farmers with commercially viable frameworks and the necessary know–how to make meaningful and scalable change at farm level fast. In order for us to scale and standardise the necessary practices to even come close to the government’s ambitious net zero plans that are based entirely on voluntary engagement, we need to create a platform for change. Policy is our starting point. Everything else springs from there. 

A significant part of this is financial incentives to encourage farmers during the transition such as a HECS–like scheme. This requires a policy change in how HECS and the taxation system can be used. Our roundtable members agreed that much of the pure research was under way, but commercialisation R&D was yet to occur.  This is an area in which Australia is traditionally lacking.

ARR.News: Depending on government funding or regulatory change, especially given a federal election is imminent, at best postpones any real outcome for at least months, at worst means the whitepaper will, as with many valuable reports since time immemorial, be lost in the mix.

Phil Mulvey: The purpose of a policy paper is also stimulating discussion in the community, which can be powerful timing for a policy paper just before an election. Uptake by farmers and support by the community is essential for our climate, our landscape and the soil beneath all our feet upon which we depend.

ARR.News: Shouldn’t there be a focus on action that can be taken now to improve soil health and farm productivity that does not depend on government funding or regulatory change? What options are there that do not depend upon government funding or regulatory change?

Phil Mulvey: We have been working on encouraging the farm industry to realistically address soil health without much luck. Farmers are excited about being paid for carbon sequestration rather than the increased profits that arise from reduced cost of sales that come from farm systems that focus on increasing soil carbon and thereby soil health. The paper does highlight the important function of our soil in regulating climate and many innovators have gone down this route without government funding, but uptake has been slow. 

Sequestering carbon to soil builds soil organic matter which boosts soil health that creates vast benefits for farmers such as increased soil security, upped water use efficiency, higher yields, drought resistance, flood resistance, bringing back the small water cycle and more. Every farmer can start building soil health through carbon sequestration today. Grants are available nationally to get farmers started, and whether farmers decide to trade carbon credits or not, building soil health through soil carbon will create tremendous benefits at farm level. But the ultimate driver seems to remain to be the opportunity to have a greater income from carbon trading rather than the perceived nebulous benefits of reduced cost of sales.

ARR.News: Broadly, what are the ‘more regenerative practices’ to which Australian farmers should convert to improve soil health and carbon sequestration?

Phil Mulvey: It is important to understand that the ERF legislation limits carbon sequestration methods to land to those activities that are demonstrable scientifically and those that are new practices to the farm. Anyone can undertake basic soil health improvement activities without having to engage in ERF methodologies. 

Many farmers struggle with what is the concept of regenerative practice. Extreme conservation agriculture, biodynamics and regenerative practice all follow similar landscape principles:

1. Seek to achieve 100% ground cover 100% of the time, preferably with living vegetation, but at least with litter and standing dead vegetation.

2. Build system resilience and increase water use efficiency by (all of the below):

a. reducing the reliance on monoculture and monopractice;
b. no till + controlled traffic + having pulses and legumes in rotation;
c. having green manure crops;
d. reducing reliance on manufactured chemicals and fertilisers;
e. for stock: transitioning from set stocking to cell (mob) grazing – allowing pasture to recover for 30 to 90 days depending on rainfall zone.

3. Increase actual rainfall by promoting the return of small water cycle through:

a. increasing soil organic matter and living vegetation cover;
b. reducing sulfate aerosols (dust from soil);
c. in flat or overall smooth agricultural landscape – introducing multi-layered timbered eco-corridors (about 50 metres wide) to cause vertical air turbulence increasing the occurrence of summer thunderstorms.

4. Increase soil biome to fungal dominated systems, so to create soil in which humification pathway is equal to or greater than mineralisation pathway. Needs digestible cellulose and/or lignin. This requires C/N/P/S/K in the right ratio. In production systems with minimised use of manufactured fertilisers, this requires animal manures or compost or animals rotated from high phosphate soils. This is often accelerated by the use of farm based Biodynamic Solution 500.

To go further requires an understanding of the farm family’s aspirations, production system and rainfall zone.

ARR.News: Why call for more money for research on things that we already know are effective, such as red seaweed? Why not spend any such money instead on providing the technology to the farmers now?

Phil Mulvey: The paper stresses that a boost to our progress towards the goals of The Australian Way to net zero comes down to both the development of not–yet–conceived technologies as well as existing innovations.There are multiple technologies on the Australian market today that can facilitate fast change. Other technologies, agents and methodologies are yet to be fully explored. 

We need to push along what’s proving to work in the lab but also explore what else could work, and continue to innovate. New research and developments pop up in this space all the time, we can’t disregard what could become a revolutionary mechanism 15 years down the track. Yes, red seaweed is known to be effective, but knowing that it works is entirely different to the entire mechanism of delivering this to the farmer, plus all the licence and approval mechanisms you need. The lead time between discovery and full commercialisation to market with distribution, wholesale and retail with appropriate approval for legislation is about 15 years. Once established how to grow, preserve and feed the stock as an additive, the long process of achieving regulatory approval of the additive is required by the appropriate authorities. 

Red seaweed needs research to establish how to grow it in volume, desiccate it, put it in a feed additive and feed to the animal in field trials, all before the tortuous task of gaining regulatory approval to use it as a feed additive. Then it needs to get turned into common practice across the country. Each and every one of these stages requires either research, development or both; and every stage requires funding.

Research funding and policy changes are all required for fast tracking things that work to market and accelerate uptake. Knowing it works in the lab or small field trials is not enough. 

ARR.News: Why not spend money on things that we know already will improve soil health (e.g. making the right dung beetles affordable and available, making biochar from waste organic matter on farms)?

Phil Mulvey: Surprisingly enough, those two activities are not the low hanging fruit of soil health, and in many instances, do not improve soil health. Biochar is not as effective as improving soil health as many amendments of waste organic matter on farms are. These on–farm organic wastes are considerably more valuable and beneficial to soil health in the organic matter humification process than being converted on–farm to biochar, and are way cheaper than biochar. 

Biochar from clean organic waste streams from industry (not from the farm) can indeed be very useful to soil health, but only when the cost of the biochar process is offset by the waste disposal costs. It is too expensive otherwise.

The whitepaper is not directly focussed on building soil health but on sequestering carbon and carbon farming in an attempt to mitigate climate change. In the paper we acknowledge the great improvement in soil health that comes from carbon sequestration. Successful carbon farming will always maximise soil health, but focussing on single solutions to soil health will not result in long–term change in soil health and the climate as successfully as carbon farming does. Though what is required for successful carbon farming is known, overcoming farmers’ hesitancy for a systems change requires many conversations, strong and repeated evidence and government support.

Carbon farming has yet to progress beyond innovators or at best early adopters. More needs to be done to get the majority adopting this change of practice.  Very few farm advisors can understand and advise on system change, system optimisation and farm system design.  Unfortunately, most focus on the symptom of poor performance of crop or stock rather than the illness of a poor system.

ARR.News: How does Carbon Count propose reaching farmers at grass roots level about low emissions methods and improving soil health? For instance ,is there a tour of field days and shows proposed?

Phil Mulvey: Carbon Count enables farmers through their agronomists, farmer coops and agricultural consultancies. We ourselves run a soil health blog and meet farmers at Field Days and are offering “know your soil” workshops. Though we offer a lot of support to farmers and collaborate with farmers to test our technology, they are not our direct market; we are a B2B business that offers a natural capital management software to farm advisors, banks, carbon project managers and corporate farmers.

We do a lot of support at the grass roots level to ensure that farmers are aware that there is a platform that saves them greater than half the cost of administering and executing a carbon project. Farmers will also typically receive more and high quality carbon credits (as a result of lower variance) via our software. Carbon Count enables users to run better projects for less.

ARR.News: Making carbon mitigation financially rewarding. I’d suspect most farmers don’t want another loan.

Phil Mulvey: Any business that makes a lot more money by borrowing money, such as successful farming businesses, will borrow. Through carbon farming one of our customers had a cost saving of about $100 000 last year, without trading carbon. This was a result of improved soil resilience during a flood. 

ARR.News: How does Carbon Count measure the link between improved soil health and productivity? For instance, how long before a farmer might see a return on investment?

Phil Mulvey: Two farms (approx 1000ha each) in the south western wheat belt of NSW; one in the 500 mm rainfall zone and the other in the 600 mm rainfall zone, were run to maximise soil carbon for the last 15 years; – not to trade carbon, but for improved profitability. At the end of 15 years, both farms improved annual profit by about $400 000 over their respective district average. This was achieved by increasing water use efficiency from 60% to 95%.  It takes between 3 and 5 years to record an improvement in profit, which continues to improve to at least 15 years. On some farms when the cost of infrastructure is included, a reduction in revenue may occur in the first year or two.

Having stated the above, Carbon Count does not advise farmers directly on soil health or productivity. We provide a platform that makes the measurement of carbon cheaper for farmers and produces high quality carbon with lower variance. The fact that we have some of the leading soil scientists and farm system advisors as both advisors and staff does mean that we offer the principles to farmers on how to achieve system change, but not tailored to their needs. Those needs should be met by their respective advisors.

ARR.News: Tax incentives. Would  tax incentives be a quicker and simpler way of making carbon mitigation affordable and encouraging farmers? For instance, the ability to write off the cost in the year of expenditure.

Phil Mulvey: In the whitepaper we mentioned a HECS scheme to support the farmer through system change, a relearning if you like, which is strongly recommended.

ARR.News: Misleading information. When should people be on the lookout for exaggerated estimates of soil carbon sequestration rates? Is there evidence this has happened, for instance, in property sales?

Phil Mulvey: Unfortunately some people are opportunistic and put wildly exaggerated values for carbon on their property. Recently a property of some 250 ha was for sale with a future carbon value of $3M. That’s rather ridiculous. As always when it comes to new markets, it is a case of buyer beware. It’s important landholders educate themselves to not fall for such traps.

With the exception of some minor coastal areas and wet mountainous areas, most of Australia’s agricultural zones below 700mml of rainfall a year are estimated to sequester around 1 tonne/ha/yr for the top 300mm. Areas that receive more than 700mml of rainfall a year average at about 3tonnes/ha/yr for the top 300mm. This depends on system management obviously. Any estimate over that would be for an exceptional wet year with exceptionally great system management or irrigation on a small allotment. There are always outliers, but the rule is – be dubious about estimates over this.

We have been asked by several banks to prepare a due diligence and risk assurance software package to address this very issue, addressing: how much is a carbon contract worth midway through and how do you assure the farmer is on target for delivery of carbon without actual measurement.

Related story: Australia could still become a leader in climate change mitigation, says industry report