Jersey could be testbed for new soil-based 'carbon trading market'

Wednesday 05 January 2022

Jersey is going to be used as a testbed for a novel trading initiative which its creators say will help the island achieve its aim of net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.

Local company The Carbon Farm is developing a Jersey-focused market for soil-based carbon.

It is encouraging farmers to embrace practices and technologies that will add the key element into the island’s carbon-depleted fields. 

That extra carbon, which will produce rich and productive soil, can then be given a monetary value and traded through an online ‘blockchain’ ledger.

Someone then can buy that carbon for a fee, which is returned to the farmer. According to The Carbon Farm, this is seen as a win-win, with the farmer getting a return on his carbon investment, the island’s soil is enriched, and Jersey moves a step closer on its journey to zero-carbon.

The Carbon Farm’s Operations Manager is Glyn Mitchell, who said that the landowners in Jersey were very keen to improve the soil quality of their fields, not least to give their assets a firmer financial future.

“In the 1700s, Jersey’s soil was 30% carbon, now it is 3%,” he said. “Every time it rains, you see the streams turn brown. That is because the island has lost its carbon; we are effectively exporting it out to sea.”

Mr Mitchell is clear on what Jersey needs to do: embrace the ‘five principles of soil health’ that it adopted by virtue of a signing up to the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, which sets the net-zero by 2050 target.

These are:

• minimising soil disturbance by preventing over-grazing, not using chemicals and ploughing as little as possible; 

• protecting the soil though ‘armour’ plants that stop erosion, maintain temperature and suppresses weeds; 

• keeping a living root in the soil to harvest CO2 and sunlight;

• diversifying crops;

• integrating livestock to balance soil carbon and nitrogen ratios by converting high carbon forages to low carbon organic material.

“By turning these pillars into standard operating procedures, farmer will reduce their reliance on fertilisers, which have little carbon benefit,” said Mr Mitchell. “A key rule for sustainable farming is to get at least 40% of the carbon back into the soil.

“Almost half a plant’s carbon is released through its roots as carbon sugars, which attract microbes, which in turn bring minerals to the plant – it is a natural exchange that benefits both sides.

“But by ploughing up the soils or adding chemical fertilisers, you break that relationship.”

Although Mr Mitchell said that many landowners were onside, the non-organic production of Jersey Royals would not currently qualify for soil carbon credits.

However, he said it was inevitable that those growing Jersey’s primary crop would have to embrace methods that promoted greater carbon creation and capture.

Mr Mitchell said he expected his company's carbon trading model to be rolled out internationally this year.