Top 5 Tools to Simplify Carbon Farming

The CFF team have got their heads together and short-listed our favourite free tools to help you gain a bit more of a practical understanding of carbon farming. Spoiler alert: we love tools so much that we cheated – we’ve made 5 categories, not 5 tools in total. You’re welcome (we think?)!

1. Emissions Accounting Frameworks

Understanding your carbon footprint is also a useful place to start when considering net emissions reductions via carbon farming practices – that’s why it tops our list. Here are a couple of tools we suggest using: 

• The Greenhouse Accounting Framework (GAF) – downloadable spreadsheets to track emissions based on your primary industry e.g., beef/sheep, cropping, dairy. GAF is aligned with the Australian National Greenhouse Gas Inventory, our national emissions reporting framework.
• The Cool Farm Tool – this tool takes only 10-15 minutes to use and allows you to calculate how altered management practices could reduce your net emissions, as well as explore biodiversity management and your water footprint. Pretty handy!

2. Maps

There are a surprising number of free mapping tools out there that you might find useful to get a bird’s eye view of your place, its management history, and relevant interests. Some of our favourites include: 

• National Map – you can overlay a wealth of data relevant to a carbon farming project – including climate information, soil and vegetation types, historical forest cover, Native Title boundaries, registered heritage sites, mining tenements and more. 
• Some state-based maps are pretty nifty. For instance, if you’re WA based, check out how your project might explore delivering co-benefits using this map’s detailed data themes – Carbon Farming and Land Restoration Program (CF-LRP) Co-benefits Information Portal. 

3. Carbon Farming Assessment Tools

If you have the lay of the land and want to sense-check your carbon farming opportunity, then it’s time to focus on project potential. Here are our go-tos:

• LOOC-C – this much-loved CSIRO tool allows you to zoom in on your place, answer a few questions, and quickly assess potential carbon project options. It’s a great first step to probe your eligibility and suitability for carbon farming. Its new cousin LOOC-B is an exciting CSIRO development – it provides insight into biodiversity indicators in your carbon farming project. 

4. Guides

While you’re weighing up project options and number-crunching we recommend boning up on ACCU Scheme compliance rules and project timelines. Having a good high-level understanding of how carbon farming projects work will pay dividends when you get to the planning stage – trust us. Your reading list might include:

• Can someone hear trumpets? Apologies for the horn-blowing but we reckon our Project Guides strike the right balance between ease of use and necessary information on running a carbon project. Check out our Reforestation, Soil Carbon and Plantation Forestry Guides. 
• The ACCU Scheme’s Simple Method Guides may be a bit tough going at first glance, but once you’ve got your head in the zone, they offer very useful information on eligibility and project management – navigate to the guide relevant to your method type via this link.
• Finally, for solid bedtime reading, we like this holistic handbook on on-farm carbon management produced by AgriFutures in partnership with Carbon Count. 

5. Apps 

Finally, apps! There are many out there, so we’ll keep it short and sweet and leave you our top suggestion. We love Mergin Maps for its on-the-ground usability and the ability to share and integrate data with other applications. You can mark out project areas when you’re out in the paddock and even out of reception – super helpful for ground-truthing your preliminary project mapping!

Ready to find out more?

Explore our range of educational resources in our Carbon Farming Education Hub where we frequently publish educational articles, webinars, and guidebooks. 

When you’re ready to explore the feasibility of undertaking a carbon project on your property, email us at [email protected] or give us a bell at (08) 6835 1140 to be connected with one of our project facilitators.