Another Australian farmer has struck a deal with global computing giant Microsoft to buy soil carbon credits.
A NSW sheep and cattle company has sold carbon credits generated from its property on the Southern Tablelands, south of Yass.
Many big companies are shopping around the world looking to buy carbon credits as they join the race to become net zero emitters of greenhouse gases.
Earlier this year Microsoft bought about $500,000 worth of carbon credits from the Wilmot Cattle Company in NSW.
Those credits came from more than 40,000 tonnes of sequestered soil carbon, which the livestock operation has been able to achieve through sophisticated grazing management.
In this latest deal, Cavan Station is a regenerative farming operation with its Bogo Merinos stud, fine wool, lamb and beef operations.
The station aims to match carrying capacity to its multi-species pastures with annual tree planting programs and "natural sequence" farming to lower chemical use.
The sale to Microsoft was aided by the same computer software which attracted the company's interest to Wilmot earlier in the year.
The soil carbon credits generated through farm management at Cavan are supported by MaiaGrazing software.
Both properties adopted MaiaGrazing as a management tool to inform their production decisions during successive drought-affected seasons and enabled them to generate surplus soil carbon credits.
"These NSW farms have been in a position to support the Microsoft carbon pledge because they have used data-informed grazing management that helped to boost their soil carbon over a period of time," MaiaGrazing chief executive officer Peter Richardson said.
Cavan Station general manager Matt Crozier said the software helped them "make good decisions around the number of livestock we were carrying at any point in time and ensured that our pastures were never overgrazed".
"An added bonus for making these sound business decisions has been the extra revenue generated from the carbon credit sale," he said.
Cavan also partnered with agricultural asset management firm Impact Ag Partners in making the deal.
Chris McLennan
ACM national rural property writer based in Bacchus Marsh, Victoria. Career journalist. Multi award winner.
ACM national rural property writer based in Bacchus Marsh, Victoria. Career journalist. Multi award winner.
