Tags for Tonnes collaboration bridges gap between grazing and soil carbon outcomes

evoke^AG. 2024 in Perth was the perfect backdrop for our launch. Its 1,800-odd delegates drew the gaze of the world’s agtech media to Australia, and the relentless way our innovators and producers stare down global challenges like climate change and soil health – and just get it done.    

A wander through the Perth Convention and Exhibition Centre quickly showed that AgriProve wasn’t the only carbon project developer at evoke^AG.. Nor was Ceres Tag the only livestock monitoring platform. We both play in increasingly crowded spaces.  

But we’re the first ones to bring the two functions together in one service – where herd insights from Ceres Tag’s amazing ‘fitbit for cows’ combines with AgriProve’s ground-truthed soil insights to help producers understand how their herd management impacts soil performance.

And critically, provide tailored, actionable grazing prescriptions to increase both soil carbon and farm productivity.  

We’re mainstreaming carbon farming – one project at a time

Here’s why AgriProve – who by count already holds 75% of all registered soil carbon projects in Australia – called on David and the Ceres Tag team to help us accelerate.   

When I founded AgriProve in 2018, I did it to provide farmers and livestock producers a way of making a profit from increasing soil carbon. Excuse the bad pun, but back then, our soil carbon tests broke new ground.  

RELATED: Simplicity and scalability the key to Ceres Tag’s global approach 

But – as carbon farming moves from fringe to mainstream – we’ve gone on to onboard more than 700 carbon projects across 140,000 hectares of Australian agricultural land.

We’ve already got 59 of those projects showing a measured increase in soil organic carbon and are now progressing through to the stage of issuing carbon credits – a projected 155,000 Australian Carbon Credit Units (ACCUs) with a market value close to $6 million. 

In fact, seven of our projects have already been issued ACCUs. 

Matthew Warnken, Founder and MD, AgriProve, speaking at evoke^AG. 2020.

I’m super proud of our impact: engaging with farmers across the country to demystify carbon farming; getting projects up and running; and building up an evidence base that’s helped legitimise the practice and position Australia as the global pacesetter.   

Soil carbon is more than just $$$. To producers, it’s proof of stewardship, too

Our 700 projects have taught us a lot:  

• That grazing management is a crucial lever in building soil carbon.  
• That, while every enterprise is different, there are key principles which can be adapted to local circumstances and applied across every farm.
• That optimising pasture utilisation is paramount.
• And that zoning a paddock is essential for enabling the convergence of pasture for beef production, and pasture for carbon. 

But producers have taught us a lot, too. Like the fact that soil carbon sequestration is as much about the validation of their enterprise management as it is about the carbon credit itself.  

RELATED: Five truths we need to spur Australia’s agrifood producers into faster action on carbon 

Partly I think it speaks to the fact that sustainability and social license criticisms have been hurled at producers for decades now, and validation of their approach is a confidence boost. But it’s also because producers know they’ll need to ‘insure’ their enterprise/product against changing market expectations and regulatory requirements.  

Ceres Tag collab simplifies our carbon: cattle integration piece

Perhaps the key thing producers have taught us it to never lose sight of the main game – optimising herd performance.  

AgriProve is strong on the technical side: the regulations, the Soil Carbon Method 2021, and how to ensure compliance. And I’ll happily geek out on that stuff until the cows come home.  

But our challenge has been, ‘How does what we know about soil carbon become material to the day-to-day operations of a livestock producer?’  That integration piece is something we’ve grappled with, mission driven as we are to do better. 

David Smith, Co-Founder and CEO of Queensland-based Ceres Tag.

Tags for Tonnes is where we landed – leveraging Ceres Tag’s unrivalled grazing management technology, coupled with AgriProves ground-truthed insights and data visualisation software, Ready Graze, to empower producers to make both their carbon project and their enterprise as productive and profitable as possible.  

We know cost is the biggest barrier to agtech adoption, so we’ve structured Tags for Tonnes with a future carbon credit payment option where the cost is deducted from ACCUs earned over a five-year period. This gives producers immediate access to industry-leading technology, without the upfront cost.   

RELATED: More than a marketing ploy: Why Macka’s carbon neutral cattle sale is a win for Australia’s red meat industry 

Tags for Teams?

With State of Origin wrapped up for 2024, this New South Welshman thought he’d leave Australian readers with a sporting analogy that might resonate. 

Back in the early 2000s, the Brisbane Broncos [for our global audience, that’s one of Queensland’s National Rugby League teams] became the first sporting club in the world to use tracking technology on their players during a game. The idea was to monitor an individual player to better understand the performance of the entire team.   

That innovation has since spread worldwide, going on to revolutionise the field of sports management. It’s probably one of the reasons why the Maroons have been so dominant since. And it proves to me something that’s reinforced in every conversation I have with livestock producers: ‘If it’s measurable, it’s manageable.’  

Be it an NRL player or a cow – tagging works for successful management.  

And I’m excited to see Tags for Tonnes work by bridging the gap between grazing practices and building soil carbon.