Deakin Carbon Project

Deakin Carbon Project is an agricultural soil carbon project located approximately 25km northwest of Goulburn in the Upper Lachlan Shire of New South Wales. It was registered in January 2021 and covers an area of 306.21 hectares.

The Upper Lachlan region is predominantly known for cattle and sheep grazing on modified pastures. The area is classified as having moderate rainfall, generally averaging around 600 to 750 mm annually, and features a diverse mix of yellow earth, podzolic, and some highly arable basalt soils.

This project operates under the Estimation of Soil Organic Carbon Sequestration using Measurement and Models methodology. Projects under this methodology aim to build soil carbon stocks by implementing new or materially different land management activities. Standard requirements involve baselining soil carbon levels through rigorous soil core sampling, carrying out the eligible new activities, and then re-measuring or modeling the soil to calculate the carbon sequestered.

Specifically, this project focuses on altering the stocking rate, duration, or intensity of grazing to promote soil vegetation cover and improve soil health. A notable shift for this property, which has been family-owned since 1917, was moving away from continuous grazing across a few large paddocks to a high-density, high-utilisation grazing model. This involved investing in new fencing infrastructure to reduce paddock sizes, thereby preventing overgrazing and allowing for longer pasture recovery periods. In September 2022, the project updated its crediting framework, transitioning from the 2018 methodology rules to the updated 2021 soil carbon determination. Developed in partnership with Agriprove Solutions, the regenerative practices are estimated to sequester between 6 to 8 tCO2e/ha/yr, aiming to generate significant supplementary income for the farm through the production of Australian Carbon Credit Units (ACCUs).