School of Agricultural and Resource Economics

We estimate the biophysical and socio-economic consequences of climate change mitigation by farmers.

The Australian ‘Carbon Farming Initiative’ (CFI) aims to encourage new farming practices that can store carbon, or reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Example practices that may be funded under the CFI include:

• Storing carbon in vegetation by planting trees or perennial shrubs
• Reduce emissions by changing the management of landfill, manure, livestock, or fertiliser
• Storing carbon in soils through use of perennial crops and pastures, no-till systems, rotational grazing and pasture cropping
  

It is unclear how changing practices will affect farm businesses. Private landholders, as well as the general public, may have different preferences for different carbon farming practices. 

We do research into socio-economic questions related to carbon farming in Australia.

Funding: The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), University of Western Australia

Period: August 2010 to June 2015

Soil carbon sequestration

This is a bioeconomic modelling project. We use the APSIM model to predict the impacts of farming practices on soil carbon sequestration. The results are combined with results from whole-farm economic modelling in MIDAS.

Combining these models allows us to analyse the trade-offs between farm profits and soil carbon sequestration. Such information is needed to predict what compensation farmers would need to encourage soil carbon sequestration.

Public preferences for carbon farming methods

This project uses socio-economic surveys, to investigate the public’s preferences for different carbon farming practices. Public benefits from carbon farming could include

• Climate change mitigation
• Environmental co-benefits (eg improved soil health, biodiversity, landscape regeneration)
• Auxillary social benefits (eg supporting rural landholders)

We use a choice experiment survey to estimate the public welfare impacts of carbon farming. This information can help determine whether some practices have higher social values than others.