Carbon Cockies of the Year

From Left to Right: Robert & Maree Goodear of Merewa won Carbon Cocky for the Hunter, Anne and Ray Williams of Magomadine" Coonamble won Carbon Cocky of the Plains (sponsored by Landmark), Martin Royd of Braidwood won Carbon Cocky East of the Divide, Col Seis of Winona, Gulgong won Carbon Cocky of the Slopes (sponsored by Country Energy) and
Michael Inwood of "Toulon" Bathurst won Carbon Cocky of the Tablelands (Sponsored by Holistic Management Australia). Each case study will be written up and posted on the Carbon Farmer site with other materials (http://carbonfarmer.blogspot.com)

ABC Country Hour Conference Coverage on Podcast

ABC RURAL RADIO'S MICHAEL CONDON INTERVIEWS CARBON COCKY GUS NAME AT THE CONFERENCE.
DR BRIAN MURPHY TALKS TO COUNTRYWIDE'S ALISON MANNING

You can hear the New South Wales Country Hour's extensive coverage of the Conference by going to http://www.abc.net.au/rural/nsw/today.htm

There you will find a Real AUdio file of the show. (If you haven't got Real Audio, Google it and download it. It's free.)

Friday, November 16, 2007
Country Hour at Mudgee Carbon Farming field day

Report: David Claughton/Michael Condon

The Country Hour broadcast from the world first Carbon Farming Expo and Conference held today.

Around 400 farmers from every state in Australia as well as New Zealand have converged on Mudgee in Central Western New South Wales to meet with scientists to hear about the latest advances in farming with a view to storing carbon. The topics for discussion include what price might be paid by for carbon stored in the soil or in grasses or crops that farmers grow.

Conference Organiser Michael Kiely has appealed for 10 million dollars in federal government money to continue research and prove what many scientists and farmers believe is true about soil carbon. He says the science is now showing that you can store carbon, measure and quantify it and that it helps farm production and the environment, while the multi-national companies responsible for polluting the environment are keen customers of carbon credits, but the Federal Government is not interested.

He also says the market for carbon credits is "exploding" in Chicago. 55-60 polluters are involved in the trade as a way of balancing their carbon producing activities.

Michael Kiely, conference organiser
Storing carbon in the soil

Report: Alison Manning

Senior soil scientist with Dept of Environment and Climate Change Brian Murphy says soil carbon can be measured in the field by taking soil samples and measuring the bulk density and the carbon level in the laboratory. It's time consuming and not always accurate.

Another way is to look at land management practices to estimate soil carbon levels.

Carbon contracts run for about 5 years but storing carbon in the soil can vary with things like drought which reduces the ground cover.

In this report: Brian Murphy, senior soil scientist, Dept of Environment and Climate Change
Carbon Cocky award

Report: Michael Condon

Tonight the Carbon Cocky of the year will be announced. Col Seis, who lives 20 kms north of Gulgong, and Gus Hinkman from Cowra are both finalists.

Judges are looking for farmers using best practice and that includes maintaining a lot of ground cover to build carbon in the soil and farming differently with perennial grasses. Broadly described as conservation farming, the techniques results in better use of water and nutrients and dramatic improvements in the health of the soil. The farmers say they are looking after the landscape with a view to improving the productivity of the land and earning some carbon credits down the track. They believe they are heading in the right direction, with some big carbon levels increasing from 1.8 to 4 per cent.

Other farmers at the event are also committed to conservation farming. Richard Maykem from Gyra is working in a cold, wet intensive farming operation. He has tried to manage his farm holistically and says "I got interested in the Landcare movement first, then heard about rotational grazing systems coming out of Africa".

Richard Langley runs a cropping property with some livestock. He's been continuously cropping for 20 years using a stubble retention program, in line with Conservation farming principles. "We haven't burnt for 20 years...when you start you're on your own. People will shake their heads, but you'll have a gut feeling you're doing the right thing, and later others will make the change."

Soil Scientists

Report: Michael Condon

Some of the progressive farmers are way ahead of scientists, we're here to hear about what they're doing and why it's working. We are working with the landholders to outline five golden rules for building the carbon levels in the soil. They include maintaining ground cover, avoiding compaction of the soil, using perennial plants.

There are a number of incentives for farmers to take up conservation farming which include some developed by the Catchment Management Authority and payments to farmers from carbon trading for taking carbon out of the air.

In this report: John Lawrie and Ian Packer, Catchment Management Authority

Climate candidate sends out SOS

PRESS RELEASE

MICHAEL KIELY
CANDIDATE PARKES
CLIMATE CHANGE COALITION

Climate candidate sends out SOS

Michael Kiely, the Climate Change Coalition candidate for the seat of Parkes in next Saturday’s election, is sending up a flare for help. He has only this week to campaign and needs to recruit polling place helpers.

“I’ve been too busy fighting Climate Change to run a conventional campaign,” says Michael Kiely, organiser of the Carbon Farming Expo & Conference last Friday and Saturday in Mudgee. It attracted close to 400 delegates from every state of Australia and New Zealand. Scientists and ‘carbon farmers’ told the audience that soil can play a dramatic part in the battle to stop rising world temperatures.

“There are 5.5 billion hectares of soil controlled by farmers around the globe. If they were able to sequester an average of one tonne of carbon per hectare, they could soak up the entire annual emissions of the world,” says Mr Kiely.

The Kiely Family have been campaigning for more than 2 years to have farmers rewarded for growing soil carbon. Michael is standing for the Climate Change Coalition to put the issue at the top of the agenda.

“I couldn’t have run the world’s first carbon farming conference to bring the top scientists and farmers together while pushing a political barrow. It would have risked disrupting the conference,” says Mr Kiely.

“As it was, we invited my chief opponent Mark Coulton of the Nationals to address the conference to prove we weren’t a political front. And I did not announce my candidature until the end of the conference. This puts me and the Climate Change Coalition party at a disadvantage. But the conference was a great success.””

The Conference heard of three programs for trading soil carbon credits and two programs for selling “carboncredited” wool and other produce.

The delegates voted unanimously for the Government to provide $10 million for more research in soil carbon and for every farmer to have their soil carbon tests done for free to encourage them to join the ‘carbon farming’ movement and start absorbing more CO2.

The Climate Change Coalition was founded by Patrice Newell who is a candidate for the Senate in NSW.

For more information, call 02 6374 0329

Vote1climate.blogspot.com
www.climatechangecoalition.com.au

Numbers limited to 450 for "Carbon Farming Conference"

."YOU MUST PRE-REGISTER FOR THE 'CARBON FARMING' CONFERENCE," say the organisers. The building has a safety limit of 450 attendees. Already more than 200 have registered and the last week is usually when a rush of registrations come in, according to many experienced event organisers

"We will try to cater for everyone who turns up, but we can't guarantee that latecomers won't be observing proceedings in a marquee on a screen," says Louisa Kiely, who is managing the registrations.

Registrations can be made by calling 02 6374 0329, by EFTPOS, credit card, money order or cheque.

Christine Jones, Peter Andrews, and Michael Mobbs: Guests of Honour

Special Guests of the Carbon Farmers of Australia are individuals whose work has championed the positive role primary producers can play in restoring farmland ecologies to health. Agriculture is mankind's greatest interface with nature. Rather than abandon this relationship, these champions place the landholder in the CHRISTINE JONES has risked all in the cause of soil carbon. She inspired the formation of the Carbon Coalition Against Global Warming and has in train the most comprehensiive soil carbon trials across Australia, under the banner of the Australian Soil Carbon Accreditation Scheme.Christine's PETER ANDREWS also sacrificed all for his vision of a restored landscape based on managed hydrology, now known as Natural Sequence Farming. Michael Mobbs, who wrote Sustainable House, is an environmental lawyer who promotes the concept of carbon farming and importance of the relationship between city and country, based on sustainable living.

New sponsor NAB knows soil carbon

NAB, which has signed on as a sponsor of the Carbon Farming Expo & Conference, has credentials in the soil carbon field. See the Blog Post we posted months ago:

Saturday, August 11, 2007

NAB WELCOMES VOLUNTARY MARKET - CRACKS IN THE WALL?

UNDER THE HEADLINE "Carbon trading to be part of business for Aust farmers", Rachel O’Neill, head of nabCapital’s Carbon Solutions Group was reported as telling a conference in Melbourne what the members of Carbon Farmers of Australiaa know: that the Voluntary Market is still available to Australian farmers:
"Farms can still participate in carbon emissions trading even though they have been excluded from the new Australian Climate Change policy, released in July," she said.
Ms O’Neill believes the time is right in Australia for innovative approaches to carbon trading and the development of new offset methodologies.
“There were practical reasons why the sector was not included, mainly to do with measurement uncertainties for carbon on-farm and the administration costs of many small sites, but the sector can still participate by generating ‘offsets’ for use in the scheme." 'Such potential offsets may include changes to fertilising practices and reduced land clearing as well as a move to farming practices such as no till which increases the carbon sequestered in the soil,' said the press release.
"Ms O’Neill told the conference there is already a voluntary carbon exchange operating in Chicago in the United States which provides examples of how farmers in Australia could be involved in carbon trading in the future...
“The Chicago Climate Exchange is expected to trade almost 12 million tonnes of CO2 emissions in 2007, with carbon credits trading at around $US3.80/tonne. In one example, farmers are earning greenhouse gas offsets through practising conservation tillage and planting grasses and trees."
“NAB is already building capacity in carbon financing through our nabCapital Carbon Solutions Group, which we formed in 2006 to identify the opportunities in the evolving carbon finance market,” Ms O’Neill said.
“We’re keen to assist clients manage their risks and take advantage of the new markets that are emerging. I have no doubt that carbon trading will soon be a part of every day business management for Australia’s forward thinking farmers.”
Hooray for the NAB.

Posted by Michael Kiely at 11:20 PM 0 comments Links to this post

SEN. KERRY O'BRIEN abandons Carbon Farmers

The ALP's shadow minister for agriculture has cancelled his appointment with Carbon Farmers, withdrawing from the speaker's list. What could be a better platform for a political message? (The Senator had warned us when we booked him that the Election could be a wild card.) By the way, the Minister McGauran and his 2IC John Cobb both refused to speak to you. We have come to expect this attitude from the current government - both Minister of Environment and Minister for Agriculture. So, in case you think we chose an ALP speaker for political reasons, don't.