NAB is today announcing the successful completion of a pilot to scale up technology to remotely measure soil carbon levels with their customers.
The technology, developed by Downforce Technologies Limited (Downforce), helps farmers better understand the historical and potential carbon in their soil, allowing them to make better decisions about increasing soil carbon storage.
NAB Executive Regional and Agribusiness, Julie Rynski, said supporting farmers to better understand their soil carbon will help these businesses build resilience and achieve carbon neutral or even carbon positive production.
“Farmers know their land and care deeply about working with it in a way that is not only financially successful but environmentally sustainable.
“Increasing stored soil organic carbon is a great way to improve productivity, profitability and resilience and can potentially lead to carbon credit trading”, Ms Rynski said.
“This technology has the potential to significantly reduce the costs of measuring and trading carbon credits, providing new revenue streams for our farmers”.
Central Queensland beef producers, Melinee and Rob Leather owners of Leather Cattle Company, are one participant in the pilot project, having already received the NAB’s first Agri Green Loan in November 2021.
Ms Leather said; “This technology gives us more evidence based and insights into the carbon held in our soil over the last 5 years, and how specific changes we have made to our land over time has helped increase our stored soil carbon. This information gives us the confidence to invest in further changes to land management and invest in projects like Leucaena plantings to further increase carbon in the soil ahead.”
NAB and DownForce are also exploring how the data can help inform NAB’s Carbon Place, a carbon trading platform NAB is developing with a consortium of international banks. Carbon Place will to support a thriving global marketplace for quality carbon offsets and will provide a valuable pathway for NAB clients in their efforts to achieve their net zero goals.
