Credits to sell and beef still carbon negative: Have your cake and eat it too

Nick Blomfield's Cheyenne Soil Carbon Project, on just 578 hectares at Walcha in NSW, was awarded 12,486 Australian Carbon Credit Units, or ACCUs, by the national Clean Energy Regulator.

The simplicity of how it was done, the relatively small size of the project in comparison to the carbon sequestered and the way Mr Blomfield, a fourth generation sheep and cattle man, describes his farming enterprise is what sets this story apart.

"I'm a carbon producer. I use beef to farm carbon," Mr Blomfield said.

Cheyenne's soil carbon levels were baselined in 2016 and in the five years following, changes in pasture and grazing management implemented in partnership with advisor CarbonLink generated the 21.6 ACCUs per hectare.

The property's emissions intensity was calculated at 4.7 kilograms of carbon dioxide equivalent emitted per kilogram of live weight carried, before sequestration.

After sequestration was accounted for, it was negative 32 kilograms.

"The biggest kicker is Cheyenne can now account for all scope 1 emissions with only 12 per cent of the total measured 22,000 tonnes of CO2 drawn down during the reporting period," said CarbonLink's Stephen Stacey.

"This is both a reflection on the power of the management practices and, secondly, a factor of how accurately we can now measure that change.

"This really provides the solution to methane emissions that beef producers are looking for."

At the same time, stocking rates have doubled, from 2500 dry sheep equivalent to 5000.

All that makes for a profitable, carbon negative beef product, but for Mr Blomfield, offsetting versus insetting is not the name of the game. Rather, it's about farming philosophy and being able to stay on the land forever.

"Your heart has to be in regenerative agriculture and making your land more healthy," he said.

"If you try to carbon farm before you regen, it won't work."

Cheyenne, which has been in the Blomfield family since 1912 - starting as a wool operation - runs 350 Angus breeders, selling calves to backgrounders, targeting 280kg by nine months.

It's all native pasture, hill country and the sequestration has been achieved mostly by time-controlled rotational grazing.

Paddock numbers were increased from 88 to 104 between 2016 and 2021 and have since been lifted to 140 paddocks. That has incrementally reduced the average paddock size from 8.6ha to 5.5ha.

"The strategy is very high stocking density for short periods, managing our rest period to the growth rates of pasture," Mr Blomfield said.

Cattle are moved onto paddocks just before the plants start to lignify. In summer, they will typically graze 30pc to 40pc of a paddock and in winter up to 80pc; with paddocks typically rested for 40 days in summer and 120 days in winter.

"It's really about nature observation and monitoring and changing systems every day," Mr Blomfield said.

"It's labour-intensive and you need good infrastructure that is easy to use - a lot of water pipes, troughs and electric fencing - but mostly you need to be willing to do things differently and to work totally in sync with nature.

"We were trying to emulate African wildebeest grazing systems. That's definitely a different way to think for Australian livestock."

Superphosphate was replaced with chicken manure to improve the water-holding capacity and aeration of soil, and further promote healthy root growth.

Mr Blomfield acknowledged the measurement and compliance involved in a soil carbon project was onerous and said it was imperative to have a good partner. He worked with Maia Grazing as well.