Soil health and carbon

This guide is a starting point for understanding soil carbon on New Zealand farms, with a short video from Professor Louis Schipper on where soil carbon comes from and why it matters for pasture growth, resilience and the climate. Schipper explains why our soils are already carbon-rich compared to much of the world, and why that high starting point makes further gains harder to achieve here than overseas.

The guide also rounds up the research underway into practices such as diverse pastures, deep-rooted lucerne and space-planted trees. Farmers wanting to go deeper can follow links through to the science behind soil carbon and to how it is measured and benchmarked nationally.