Abstract
The Australian government has
identified soil carbon sequestration on agricultural
lands as a potential strategy to offset greenhouse
gas emissions. Industry and government claim
providing positive incentives for farmers to change
their land management will be cost
can result in significant carbon sequestration in
agricultural soils. There is, however, little
information about the costs or benefits of
agricultural soil carbon sequestration to test these
claims. The objective of this study is to assess the
costs of alternative land-use and land
practises that will increase soil carbon
sequestration, for a case study of the WA Wheat
belt. The analysis integrates biophysical modelling
of carbon sequestration with whole-farm economic
modelling, to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of
alternative carbon storage practices. Preliminary
results suggest that, even under low commodity
price scenarios, the opportunit
sequestering carbon are considerable. We discuss
the implications of our findings for policy
development.