Associate Professor Matthew Harrison, Tasmanian Institute of Agriculture, University of Tasmania, November 2022

This presentation covers:

• Why all the hype about soil carbon?
• Soil carbon sequestration and carbon cycling
• Challenges in measuring statistical changes in soil carbon over time
• Benefits of improved soil organic carbon, including mitigation of global warming and drought resilience, water holding capacity, improvements in biodiversity
• Interventions or practice changes for increasing soil carbon
• Costs of participating in soil carbon markets
• Income from soil carbon markets and indicative soil carbon losses
• Income from soil carbon markets vs income from improved productivity
• Soil carbon stoichiometry
• Selling carbon credits vs creating a carbon neutral product
• Soil organic carbon vs soil organic matter
• The contentious issue of additionality
• Divergent aspirations: prosperity of an individual vs societal public good
• Rethinking soil carbon markets: would a payment instrument based on soil carbon stocks rather than fluxes be more effective?