Victorian Carbon Farming Program

The Victorian Carbon Farming Program (VCFP) aims to support Victorian landowners to plant agroforestry and shelterbelt trees on private land to sequester carbon and contribute to the state’s emissions reduction goals, including Victoria’s target to be a net zero emitter of carbon by 2045.

The program acknowledges the challenges Victorian rural landowners have traditionally faced in accessing carbon markets. Recognising these challenges, the program has been designed so that Victorian landowners have better access to incentives that support tree growing activities and ultimately deliver new income streams and other on-farm benefits.

Beyond an expansion of the private forestry estate, the program also aims to develop private sector capacity to assist Landowners in maximising revenue from carbon, timber or other environmental markets via professional advice and assistance from Project Advisors registered with the program.

The Victorian Carbon Farming Program (VCFP) Pilot is the first phase of the VCFP and will run for 18 months from mid 2023 to late 2024.

The Pilot will test key facets of the program’s design ahead of a broader rollout to other areas of the state scheduled for 2024.

Projects approved for VCFP funding within the pilot phase will be contracted for delivery over a 10 year timeframe.

The Victorian Carbon Farming Program (VCFP) Pilot is not prescriptive with respect to tree species or management regime, however tree plantings must align with the objectives of the program.

Projects that elect to establish environmental plantings must demonstrate that the plantings are well integrated into the property, such as in shelterbelts or riparian areas.

Environmental plantings that are not shelterbelts, riparian buffers or other integrated planting types, and have the primary purpose of broad (paddock) scale land conversion for biodiversity benefits, are excluded from the VCFP Pilot. Such projects may be eligible for the Bushbank program.

The Victorian Carbon Farming Program (VCFP) Pilot supports tree planting projects of a scale up to 100 hectares. While there is no defined minimum size for projects, no one planting block within a project can be smaller than 0.5 of a hectare.

Registered Project Advisors (RPAs) to the Victorian Carbon Farming Program (VCFP) Pilot are businesses with sound credentials in delivering tree growing projects. All RPAs registered into the VCFP Pilot have met or exceeded eligibility criteria set by DEECA via the VCFP Pilot Expression of Interest (EOI) process.

RPAs are responsible for:

• identifying landowners interested in planting and growing trees in the Pilot Area,
• developing grant proposals on behalf of landowners, and
• implementing, project managing and reporting on approved projects over a 10-year project duration.

RPAs assist landowners to understand the potential for their properties to host carbon farming projects, and are eligible to a share of the grant funding made available via the project.

RPAs are the principal conduit of plantation development information and support to landowners, and may seek to aggregate projects with landowners for landscape scale co-benefits such as scalable carbon credits, payment for ecosystem services, scalable timber production or to build habitat corridors across multiple parcels of private land.

Landowners must commit to retaining project trees funded through the Victorian Carbon Farming Program (VCFP) Pilot for a period of 10 years.

A landowners must enter a contract with an RPA, and separately with the government, and allow the RPA to periodically access their land to undertake tree management activities and VCFP Pilot reporting requirements. The meeting of reporting requirements under the VCFP may involve minimal requirements of landowners such as taking photos of trees. The responsibilities of such obligations should be discussed between the Landowner and their RPA in the first instance.

The Victorian Carbon Farming Program (VCFP) Pilot places no ownership obligation on trees grown or carbon sequestered under the program. Landowners are free to negotiate the sale of timber or carbon assets at their discretion providing the trees remain in the ground for a minimum period of 10 years.

The Victorian Carbon Farming Program (VCFP) Pilot Sponsorship Opportunity provides discreet funding to Registered Project Advisors (RPAs) to promote the VCFP. RPAs may be invited to apply for sponsorship funding to encourages landowners within the North Central Catchment Management Authority Region to make their land available for VCFP tree planting projects.

Activities supported by Sponsorship Opportunity funding include:

• Facilitation of community meetings to present the opportunities available to landowners through the VCFP Pilot
• Visits and discussions with groups or individuals about available opportunities under the VCFP Pilot
• Participation in media events (local radio, television, online or print media) to promote the VCFP Pilot
• Other activities aligned with the objectives of the program and the requirements of the Sponsorship Agreement may be considered following discussions with the Department.

Only businesses approved as Registered Project Advisors to the program are eligible to apply for sponsorship to undertake outreach activities.

Registered Project Advisors will be required to assist the evaluation of the Victorian Carbon Farming Program (VCFP) Pilot. The evaluation process will include the provision of periodic reporting, both written and in person, to the Department. This process will enable development of support activities for both Landowners and RPAs under future VCFP funding rounds.