Growing carbon starts to make more sense

Dairy goat farmers Jeff and Fiona Graham who lease the 97ha family-owned farm at Pukeatua near Te Awamutu, also believe the tighter grip DairyPoint gives them on farm costs will help them eventually trade carbon.

The farm belongs to Fiona's father, John Cook, 85.

"The carbon neutral, or positive, side of things is something fairly new to me," Jeff Graham 58, says.

"We have heard that it is going to be the thing of the future, but I am extremely concerned we are going to end up being reactive to something we don't know much about," he says.

"eCOGENT.biz has come up with visual soil analysis to measure carbon and we have got reasonably good soil.

"We count the worms and examine the soil type.

"At the moment we could be carbon zero, but given a little bit of time and more bioactivity, we will be carbon positive and will have carbon credits to sell.

"I think we are going to have our soil up to maximum in three years and Peter Floyd is saying he thinks we can do it in one."

Chris Gardner is a Farming Editor at theWaikato Times

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