Courtice Carbon Project 8

Courtice Carbon Project 8 is a soil carbon sequestration project located in the Tatiara District of South Australia, approximately 50km north of the major town of Bordertown, near the Victorian border. It was registered in November 2021 and covers an area of 223.26 hectares.

The project operates under the Measurement of Soil Carbon Sequestration in Agricultural Systems 2018 methodology. This method allows agricultural landholders to earn Australian Carbon Credit Units (ACCUs) by undertaking new or materially different land management activities to build and store soil organic carbon. Standard requirements include establishing a baseline soil carbon level via random sampling, implementing eligible management activities, and conducting regular testing over a permanence period of either 25 or 100 years to continually measure the carbon stored.

The surrounding Tatiara and Murray Mallee region is known for dryland agriculture, predominantly sheep grazing and cereal cropping such as wheat and barley. The area experiences a semi-arid to Mediterranean climate with typical annual rainfall between 380mm and 460mm. Soils in this region are largely sandy loams over clay, along with limestone-based profiles typical of the Limestone Coast and Mallee transition zones.

To increase the carbon stored in the soil, this project involves several integrated management activities. These include altering the stocking rate, duration, or intensity of grazing; applying synthetic or non-synthetic fertilisers to address material soil deficiencies; and establishing or rejuvenating pastures by seeding where there was previously cropland or bare fallow. The project is managed by Agriprove Solutions Pty Ltd and is part of a larger aggregation of multiple "Courtice Carbon Projects" (ranging from 1 through 11) being undertaken in the same district.