Couple hope to trade carbon soon

 Waikato dairy farming couple who hope they are months away from trading carbon shared their story at the New Zealand Soil Carbon Conference in Napier. Dave and Kathi Harris discovered carbon flourished in their soil after dumping traditional fertilisers in favour of lime-based alternatives reports The Waikato Times.The deeper they can get the roots to grow over on the century-old family farm at Pokuru, near Te Awamutu, the more carbon the farm can produce and the more money they can make. Before the change, brought on by the pair signing up to eCogent's Dairy-Point system in 2004, carbon was only 7.5cm deep on their farm. Now it's 30cm deep. Mr Harris, speaking at the conference last week, said eCogent had introduced him to Palmerston North-based Landcare Research scientist Graham Shepherd who had given him the tools for monitoring soil health and growth. "In September we measured the carbon content of our soils 172 tonnes per hectare and now are excitedly waiting to measure them again this September," Mr Harris said. "We hope to sequester into the soil more carbon than we emit, and thus become carbon positive and start trading carbon on world markets." Milk production soared by nearly 20,000kg of milksolids to 96,000kg shortly after they signed up with eCogent's DairyPoint system, a tool for farmers to gauge daily profit from every animal on the farm, and calculate profit per kg of feed eaten. The pair, who switched to supplying Open Country Dairy in 2008 from supplying Fonterra, had hoped to be trading on the Chicago Futures Exchange a year ago but uncertainty on the Emissions Trading Scheme currently undergoing review has held that up. "We were using current industry standards, trying to produce more milk by farming more cows, having to bring in more inputs and produce more supplement, all resulting in our working harder for less because the milk produced did not cover the additional costs," Mr Harris said.