Grants awarded for soil carbon measurement technology trials

The Australian Government has announced the first round of grant recipients under the National Soil Carbon Innovation Challenge—Development and Demonstration Grants.

Eight projects will share $28.9 million in grants to accelerate the development of promising technologies that have undergone feasibility studies.

Grant recipients

Agrimix Pty Ltd

The grant recipients will develop and demonstrate innovative soil organic carbon measurement technologies across a range of Australian agricultural landscapes

Fully integrated SOC measurement using CO2 flux, remote sensing and models: $3,233,725

Agriprove Pty Ltd

Multi-Band SAR and Optics as a Novel Soil Carbon Measurement Technology: $9,240,000

Carbon Link Operations Pty Ltd

Technology for lower cost & accurate Australia-wide soil carbon projects: $2,305,674

Carbon Project Australia Pty Ltd

Commercialise Carbon Project device and data analysis software: $2,401,520

Cloud Agronomics Pty Ltd

Kicking the $3/Ha goal by fusing SOC samples with remote sensing/ML” $1,819,621

Hone Carbon Pty Ltd

On-farm deployment of Hone Lab Red, a low-cost SOC measurement tool

Sensorc Pty Ltd

Rapid Assessment of Soil Parameters (RASP) to manage & quantify soil carbon: $2,250,928

The University of Queensland

Proximal and remote sensing for low-cost soil carbon stock estimation: $4,346.681 and production systems. The $50 million National Soil Carbon Innovation Challenge is part of the Government’s commitment to supporting carbon farming. The Government is taking steps to better equip Australian farmers and land managers to reduce emissions, increase carbon sequestration and participate in carbon markets.

The Challenge aims to reduce the cost of reliably measuring soil organic carbon. This will improve the accessibility of information and measurement tools for farmers and land managers to manage their soils and demonstrate how they are reducing Australia’s emissions.