Grounds Keeping Carbon Project

Grounds Keeping Carbon Project is a Soil Carbon project located at Hallora in the West Gippsland region of Victoria, approximately 10km south of Drouin and 80km southeast of Melbourne. It was registered in October 2016 and covers an area of 124.49 hectares.

Soil carbon projects involve altering agricultural practices to increase the amount of organic carbon stored in the soil. Under the Estimation of Soil Organic Carbon Sequestration methodology, proponents must establish baseline carbon levels and introduce new eligible land management activities. For this specific project, these standard activities include altering stocking rates, rejuvenating pasture by seeding or cropping, and using legume species in the pasture systems.

The West Gippsland area is well known for its rolling pastoral countryside, which is primarily utilized for dairy and beef cattle farming. The environment is considered a high rainfall zone, receiving around 1,000 mm of average annual rainfall. The soils in this region are highly fertile and characterized as acidic red ferrosols, which are deep, well-draining clay loams often associated with volcanic or basaltic origins.

Notably, this project takes place on the Olsen family's beef cattle farm and holds the distinction of being the first soil carbon project in the world to earn carbon credits eligible under the Paris Agreement. The farmers invented a specialized tractor implement called the "SoilKee Renovator," a machine that combines cultivation, mulching, aeration, and mixed-species seeding in a single pass to effectively build topsoil and maximize photosynthesis. Through these regenerative agriculture practices, the farm dramatically increased its dry biomass yields from 7 to 20 tonnes per hectare and completely eliminated its reliance on synthetic fertilizers.