Fife Carbon Project

Fife Carbon Project is a soil organic carbon sequestration project located approximately 25-30 kilometres north of Shepparton, in the Moira Shire region of Victoria. Registered in August 2022, the project covers a total area of 174.35 hectares, with 157.6 hectares actively dedicated to the soil carbon project. It forms part of a larger 640-hectare broadacre farm managed by Luke and Ken Felmingham. The Moira Shire area is well known for its primary agricultural production, with this specific property focusing heavily on hay, grain, and lucerne cropping.

The region experiences a temperate, semi-arid climate with relatively low to moderate rainfall, typically averaging between 400mm and 460mm annually. Soils across the Central Victoria and Moira Shire regions are predominantly Sodosols and Chromosols. These soil profiles generally feature shallow, hard-setting loam or clay-loam topsoils overlying heavy, dispersive clay subsoils. Due to their structure, these soils are historically prone to compaction and root growth constraints, making targeted soil health and nutrient management highly beneficial.

The project operates under the Estimation of Soil Organic Carbon Sequestration using Measurement and Models methodology. This method allows landholders to earn carbon credits by building the amount of organic carbon stored in their agricultural soils, verified through rigorous baseline soil sampling, subsequent laboratory analysis, and modelling. To achieve these carbon increases, the Fife Carbon Project's core activities include converting from intensive tillage to reduced or no-tillage practices, alongside applying nutrients to the land, via synthetic or non-synthetic fertilisers, to address material soil deficiencies.

Notably, the Fife Carbon Project represents a significant milestone in Australian agriculture: it is the first broadacre cropping enterprise in the country to be issued Australian Carbon Credit Units (ACCUs) for soil carbon sequestration. Partnering with project agent AgriProve, the proponents utilised targeted land-management approaches such as bio-stimulants, fulvic acid to buffer chemical impacts, microbial seed dressings (SureCrop PRIME), and humate granules to boost root growth. This intensive management successfully increased soil carbon by 2,000 tonnes in just 12 months, generating thousands of ACCUs and successfully challenging the traditional industry belief that soil carbon cannot be effectively and rapidly built up in broadacre cropping systems.