Brereton Carbon Project 10

Brereton Carbon Project 10 is a soil carbon sequestration project located near the small town of Caltowie, approximately 20km west of Jamestown in the Mid North region of South Australia. Registered in December 2023, the project covers roughly 161 hectares of agricultural land. The numbering of the project (Project 10) suggests it is part of a larger aggregation of projects or a single property divided into multiple carbon estimation areas managed by the same landholders.

The Mid North region is a well-established agricultural zone known for mixed farming, specifically combining broadacre cereal cropping (wheat and barley) with livestock grazing (sheep and cattle). The area experiences a Mediterranean climate with a winter-dominant rainfall pattern, averaging between 400mm and 500mm annually. The soils in the Caltowie district are typically fertile Red Brown Earths (hard setting loam over red clay) or Calcarosols (calcareous loams), which are productive but can be susceptible to erosion if over-tilled.

This project operates under the 2021 Soil Carbon methodology, which requires landholders to switch to management activities that increase soil organic carbon levels. For Brereton Carbon Project 10, these activities include applying synthetic or non-synthetic fertilizers to address nutrient deficiencies and converting from intensive tillage to reduced or no-tillage practices. By minimizing soil disturbance and optimizing plant growth through nutrition, the project aims to sequester atmospheric carbon into the soil profile, earning Australian Carbon Credit Units (ACCUs) for the measured increases over time.