In an opinion piece in the Sydney Morning Herald today, Peter Cosier of the Wentworth Group says farmers who increase carbon in their soil could be paid up to four times more under the government's emissions trading scheme.

The opposition has said it will rely on measures to increase soil in carbon like biochar, reducing tillage and using compost to make 60 per cent of the greenhouse gas cuts from its climate fund for industry.

The Coalition's policy would pay farmers up to $10 a tonne of carbon sequestered in soil.

''But $10 is a very low price,'' Mr Cosier said. ''Under the government's emissions trading scheme, according to Treasury modelling, farmers would be paid two, three or four times more than the Coalition's offer.''

Mr Cosier has welcomed the opposition's focus on storing carbon in soil and vegetation and said the measures could help it reach a 5pc cut in emissions by 2020. But he said much tougher targets needed to be adopted to stop global warming.

The government agreed to increase measures to pay farmers to store carbon in their soil in negotiations with the former opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull over its emissions trading scheme.

The government has said that, if proper methodologies are found to measure the amount of carbon in soil, it will give farmers credits for emission saved from 2013. The credits are expected to be worth close to $30 a tonne.

Biochar turns bio-waste from agriculture and farming into charcoal that is then put in farming soil, boosting productivity. It is yet to be commercially demonstrated.

A CSIRO soil carbon expert, Dr Jeffrey Baldock, said that while the technology had enormous potential in Australia, it was hard to measure and retain carbon stored in soil over a large area.

Concerns over measurement has meant soil carbon was not included in the Kyoto Protocol and cannot be counted towards national emissions targets. But a number of developed countries, including Australia, have argued that soil measures should now be included in a post-Kyoto agreement.