Dr Jones told the inquiry agricultural soils have the capacity to sequester large volumes of atmospheric carbon by “rebuilding” robust agricultural soils, which would also “enhance the resilience of the Australian landscape to withstand changes to climate” she said.
An added benefit would be that expenditure on fuel, fertiliser and chemical inputs would be significantly reduced, she said.
“As a bonus, sequestering carbon in soils represents a practical, permanent and productive solution to removing excess CO2 from the atmosphere,” Dr Jones said.
“It would require only a 0.5pc increase in soil carbon on 2pc of Australia’s agricultural land to sequester all greenhouse gas emissions.
“That is, the annual emissions from all industrial, urban and transport sources could be sequestered in farmland soils if incentive was provided to landholders for this to happen.”
While some farmers are fearful of having soil carbon included in an emissions trading scheme because there may be times when agriculture would have to pay for emissions in years when soil quality is poor, Dr Jones told the inquiry there was “no valid reason for the Australian agricultural sector to be a net emitter of CO2”.
“By adopting regenerative soil-building practices, it is practical, possible and profitable for broadacre cropping and grazing enterprises to record net sequestration of carbon in the order of 25 tonnes of CO2 per tonne of product sold (after emissions accounted for),” she said.
“Discussions on adapting to climate change are irrelevant unless they focus on rebuilding healthy topsoil.
“There is an urgent need for a national strategy to assist Australian agricultural industries to adapt to climate change. To be effective, this strategy will require a radical departure from ‘business as usual’.”
But Dr Jones said in the last decade the key people working to develop soil building strategies have been declined funding from research and development corporations due to ‘expert scientific advice’ that it is not possible to build stable soil carbon.
She said while farmers have data of the effectiveness of the work they’re doing, it is not considered data by scientists because it does not fit into the scientific model.
“The scientific establishment had been talking among themselves while farmers across Australia were doing amazing innovative stuff,” she said.
“We need a large investment to get the soil carbon accounting models right.”
She said improved resilience from building better soils would reduce the need for drought assistance.
“Improved agricultural productivity and profitability would translate to reduced requirements for government assistance.
“Furthermore, farming in a perennial base would enhance the resilience of the agricultural landscape to a wide range of climatic extremes, some of which may not even have been encountered to date.”