Australia’s largest soil carbon project developer AgriProve is partnering with RMIT and the Grantham Foundation for the Protection of the Environment on a three year Soil Carbon Research Program to boost the evidence base of Australia’s world-leading approach to soil carbon project development.
The research program will further refine the accuracy of how and where samples are taken, so that confidence in the critically important method can continue to grow and the benefits of soil carbon projects optimised.
Dr Samantha Grover of RMIT’s Soil Atmosphere Anthroposphere Lab (SAAL) will lead the program.
“In Australia at this time we have the opportunity to do things differently, to manage our landscapes with multiple benefits in mind. Soil carbon sequestration has potential to contribute to climate change mitigation and social and ecological landscape regeneration at scale in this country, through changing the way we manage land and the interactions between plants, animals, soils and people,” Dr Grover said.
“This research will allow us to accelerate the evidence base underpinning soil carbon project development by looking at how to optimise sampling to detect statistically significant changes in soil organic carbon. We will be looking at sample area size, segmentation and other key factors to identify how and where improvements can be made. This is research of fundamental importance to Australian land managers and to the global climate crisis and I and the SAAL team at RMIT are excited to be involved.”
“We have been following the development and uptake of the Soil Carbon Method and AgriProve’s leadership in this space makes them the ideal industry partner for this research. AgriProve’s commitment to evidence-based frameworks supported by innovation and technology aligns strongly with the SAAL approach and RMIT’s Strategy, Knowledge with Action.”
The project attracted the support of the Grantham Foundation, given Australia’s leadership on and ongoing investment in soil innovation including the most recent Federal grant funding of almost $30 million to accelerate the development of reliable, low-cost technologies for measuring soil organic carbon.
“We are proud to be supporting this world leading piece of research in Australia that will bolster confidence in measuring a statistically significant positive change within soil carbon projects,” Eric Smith, Director, Grantham Foundation said.
“Soil is the largest terrestrial sink and this is a tremendous opportunity to optimise the science of soil carbon and reliability in its critical role in regenerative agriculture and climate change mitigation.”
AgriProve Managing Director Matthew Warnken says the project is another important demonstration of the sector’s ongoing investment in innovation and technology to benefit farmers and landowners.
“The transformation of regenerative Agriculture is dependent on harnessing science and technology at an investment level that simply isn’t affordable for individual farmers,” Mr Warnken said.
“AgriProve is proud to be at the forefront of innovation and investment to drive confidence in the approach and results. This research under the leadership of RMIT and with the support of the Grantham Foundation is important as it brings even more transparency and objective data to soil carbon farming and will make it even easier for participating farmers to measure soil organic carbon.”