Planting trees, letting them grow then harvesting the wood so the tree can grow again, has been investigated as one of many ways to sequester carbon.
Australian Integrated Carbon's Nick Paltridge said he had completed the first desktop case study where farmers could sequester carbon from shelterbelts.
"Looking at a farm down at Meningie with 700 hectares, I've conducted a desktop study to model what the revenue would be," he said.
"I've sat down with the farmer and worked out where 53ha of trees could go on their property with targeted lower production areas like sand hills.
"We have put strips of trees around the boundary because for them, they're interested in stopping sheep getting in from the neighbours, so there's a biosecurity aspects to having shelter belts around the boundaries and we've put them mostly on existing fence lines to reduce the fencing cost.
"In a nutshell, the 53ha of Mallee-based shelterbelts would cost about $100,000 to set up and the revenue would be about $380,000 projected over 25 years."
He said according to the simple model, the revenue more than pays for the establishment costs of the trees.
"The revenue also pays for forgone production in today's dollars from those 53ha," he said.
"It really does look like that carbon markets can finance shelter belt plantings and then any co-benefits you get from the shelter belts such as improved lambing percentages, improved water balance on the farm and improved aesthetics, all those things come for free."
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He said farmers who had already planted trees years ago felt that it had boosted their overall productivity and improved landscape function, and he suggested carbon revenue would help basically fund the project.
"They're more interested in offsetting their own emissions and doing it for their own reasons and maintaining market access," he said.
"In five years, we might need to show if not carbon neutrality, then a shift towards carbon neutrality in order to gain access to for example, the European Union market.
"We did some calculations on what the farm's footprint is and what proportion of the footprint is offset by that seven per cent tree area.
"And in the case of this property, it was 50pc of their emissions will be offset by that 53ha planting and they're interested in that.
"They're not interested in selling the credits, but they are interested in the fact that it might get them a premium or access to a premium market in the future, improved amenity and the water balance on the farm."
PIRSA forestry project manager Amy McMurren said about 5000 people were employed full time in the forest industry, and the processed value of logs harvested in the state each year is about $1.3 billion.
"The demand for timber products in Australia is increasing," she said.
"The national industries plan is called growing a better Australia.
"There is need for 400,000ha of new plantation to meet the demand for wood so this amounts to a billion new trees.
"The Australian government is providing $3.5 million dollars to support states and territories to do it."
She said the funding reflects a commitment in the national forest industries plan and recognised the important role farm forestry in applying timber to Australia's forest and wood products industry.
"PIRSA's project titled Expanding South Australia's Forestry Resource Through Farm Based Forestry is being delivered with a $500,000 share of the government funding," she said.
"Completion of project activities will facilitate outcomes including an increase in timber supply to sawmills, diversified farm incomes, further regional investment by the forest industry, more support for regional communities and better partnerships between the forest industry supply chain including between land holders and companies.
"In addition to this PIRSA also has a growing carbon farming pilot, which is a $1 million initiative to encourage carbon farming adoption and to build the carbon market in SA.
"This particular project is coordinated by Emma Winslow and the pilots aims to support the establishment of six commercial carbon demonstration projects that will be used to demonstrate carbon abatement alongside environmental, social and economic co-benefits.
"PIRSA looks forward to working with stakeholders to grow farm based forestry and will soon be announcing grant funding opportunities to assist farmers who want to get involved."
Farm Forestry Landcare Network chair Ian Filmer, Victor Harbor, said the best time to have started planting trees was seven years ago.