The Coalition's plan to store carbon dioxide in soil as a central plank of its climate policy has been thrown into further doubt by new research showing Australian soils are unlikely to offer low-cost emissions cuts.

A University of Melbourne survey of hundreds of Australian studies going back three decades found that using the country's soils to offset a significant proportion of national greenhouse gases “is technically limited and economically unviable at the present time”.

Hard row to hoe for carbon farming plans. Credit:David Clemson

Published in the journal Nature Scientific Reports, it suggests farmers would lose out through soil-carbon projects at carbon prices backed by both the government and the opposition.

Report co-author Rick Roush, the Dean of the Melbourne School of Land and Environment, said most active soil scientists thought it would be "a stretch” for farmers to use the Carbon Farming Initiative – a policy that encourages soil-carbon projects and is backed by both major parties.