THE Australian Agricultural Co is making progress in its first soil carbon sequestration project, with the process of registration with the Clean Energy Regulator now underway.

Presenting its half-year financials and operating update to the market on Friday, AA Co said the company had expanded its approach to sustainability in the first half ended 30 September, including investigating new insetting business models, making progress with methane abatement trials and considering new partnership and investment opportunities that would boost sustainability activity and outcomes.

The company’s first soil carbon sequestration project was centred on landholdings in Central Queensland, chief executive David Harris said.

“While there have been other similar projects established in the region by others, it’s a first for AA Co,” Mr Harris said.

“Largely, the Australian Carbon Credit Units we have generated to date have been through the beef cattle herd management program, so this is our first soil-based project.”

He said he was reluctant to refer specifically to the project’s size, until it had completed the registration phase, but it was substantial.

Rangelands Carbon by Satellite project

A major focus for AA Co’s sustainability push in recent times has been its Rangelands Carbon by Satellite project, being developed in conjunction with CIBO Labs, Food Agility CRC and CarbonLink.

This satellite-based monitoring project, launched in 2021, is designed to estimate levels of soil carbon on any location with considerable accuracy, from space.

The third round of field samples for the Rangelands Carbon by Satellite project have now been completed, with more than 2200 soil cores now collected on AA Co landholdings for calibration work in the satellite-based monitoring work.

The project, now in its final development stages before completion next January or February, is essentially about trying to reduce the input cost involved in ground-based assessment to baseline such projects, bringing down the cost barrier for participation in soil carbon markets. AA Co earlier told shareholders that at one point it was quoted a figure of around $70 million to provide a ground-based baseline assessment of its soil carbon credentials.

Later, the plan is to extend this method to model the carbon flow through the AA Co’s operations by incorporating carbon sequestration in vegetation and overlaying methane emissions from cattle, for the first time demonstrating the biogenic carbon cycle in action.

Precision satellite-based landscape analysis is also being used in supporting decision-making, through uplift in internal capability and development of new technology, it told shareholders on Friday.

In other areas of sustainability, the company said it continued to progress trials in methane abatement using feed additives, while it has also partnered with the recently-launched Zero Net Emissions Ag CRC in development of a project focussing on practices for reducing emissions among cattle in rangelands environments.