Grant funding of almost $30 million to support farmers and land managers in measuring soil carbon part of first round of National Soil Carbon Innovation Challenge
Funding for 2 projects AgriProve is involved ($9.2 million for AgriProve’s low-orbit satellite project; and $3.3 million to Hone Carbon in partnership with AgriProve, Elders and Carbon West for Hone Lab Red commercial scalability)
18 November 2022: The Federal Government’s grant funding of $9.2 million for AgriProve’s satellite project is important recognition of a project which will transform the level of soil carbon measurement for Australia’s farmers and land managers.
The launch of an integrated synthetic aperture radar and optical satellite into low Earth orbit next year will provide detailed data at never before seen complexity which will be blended with machine learning to generate new high-resolution, high-accuracy models for predictive analysis and comprehensive soil carbon measurement.
A further $3.3 million has been granted to Hone Carbon in partnership with AgriProve, Elders and Carbon West to demonstrate the commercial scalability of Hone Lab Red, a low-cost, in field, soil organic carbon measurement tool through on-farm testing at 110 locations.
A total of 8 projects received $28.9 million in grants under the first development and demonstration grant round of the government’s $50 million National Soil Carbon Innovation Challenge.
Quotes attributable to AgriProve Managing Director Matthew Warnken
“AgriProve is proud to be working alongside Australia’s farmers and land managers in embracing regenerative agriculture and this grant funding provides multiple fronts to amplify take-up and further enhance the integrity of science-driven approaches, supported by increasingly detailed monitoring and measurement of soil organic carbon.”
“We have and will continue to invest heavily in adopting and developing technology, platforms and processes to make it increasingly easier for our partner farmers and land managers to benchmark, measure and boost soil carbon levels.”
“Grant funding is important recognition from Government of the importance of this work as we all continue to work towards the necessary scalability of soil carbon farming required to achieve Australia’s emission targets.”
Media contact: LJ Loch 0488 038 555 [email protected]
The announcement by The Hon Chris Bowen MP, Minister for Climate Change and Energy &
Senator the Hon Murray Watt, Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, Minister for Emergency Management can read here.