Since releasing FARMAX 8 in 2020, one of the most heavily requested features was to capture carbon sequestration from forestry.

In FARMAX 8.1, you can describe forestry block(s) in more detail, including age, species and area. Carbon sequestered from forestry blocks is added as an offset against stock emissions. Sequestration data is sourced directly from the Ministry for Primary Industries’ publicly available look-up tables.

Phil Journeaux, agricultural economist and consultant for AgFirst Waikato, asserts that the forestry sequestration component is extremely beneficial for farmers.

“It means the [FARMAX] model can calculate the greenhouse gas emissions from the pastoral operation and, by including the forestry and sequestration side, it then gives the farmer a direct idea of the offset from forestry relative to the pastoral situation and gives them an idea of their net emissions.

“Let’s assume that the offsets from the sequestration are greater than the pastoral emissions, it gives the farmer a direct idea of how much surplus carbon they may have which is potentially for sale,” explains Journeaux.