Interesting that a soil scientist warns trees are not economically feasable right now with no substance to back it up. Trees are feasable right now and will be in the future and that is just on the carbon returns without adding all the additional benefits. It is high time so commentators on climate change stopped pushing thier own barrows at the expense of all else we will need to undertake all opitions to combat climate change, there is no silver bullet. Next time you make a comment such as trees are not economicly feasable back it up with your studies. There are certain areas of Australia where economic modelling shows tree carbon outdoes agriculture 5 to 1. Maybe agricutlure is the un economic option.

Scary predictions based on worst case scenarios are used by some people as part of a campaign to scare the industry into compliance and lock farmers out of the carbon trading system.

Unless the agriculture industry gets its act together it is going to be railroaded.

Many of the agricultural inputs are going to increase in price due to compliance costs with the NGER and any emissions trading scheme, before the cost of carbon is included, forcing higher prices onto the landholder, not just the carbon costs but also the administraiton costs and probably a little bit of profit.

Then, on the other side, the purchasers are going to demand higher environmentla performance from agriculture and cite increasing ocosts as an inability to increase prices.

Current carbon trading schems do not recognise the uniqueness of the ag sector and limit opportunities. The whole system is run by the Department of Climate Change that in my experience is not only massively underresourced it is completey ignorant of the agricultural sector.

Questions have been asked of the DCC as to how ag will be treated and how the NGER affects agricutural facilities. Not only does it take months to get an answer but the answers are often vague, steeped in political considerations and lacking any real decisions.

The biggest concern is that the DCC make the rules, interpret the rules, manage the process and award contract.

Have a look at where the DCC is spending the research mony and that will give you an idea of what they want to tax.

Farmers need to be very aware of the decisions that are made behind closed doors in Canbverra by individuals who hide behind the bureaucracy that have no idea about agriculture.

Farmers should be very concerned about carbon in agriculture.

Yes Lorax, what a tragic comment from a soil scientist - that trees are not economically viable "at present".

Even more astonishing is the extraordinary assumption that the industrial and green revolutions changed agriculture for the better, forever. Industrial farming requires 10 units of energy (oil and gas) to produce one unit of food energy and was only ever economically and energetically viable while we had plentiful oil.

As global oil supplies continue to deplete (yes, we are either close to, or past, global peak production - if you doubt this claim, just google "peak oil"), and oil becomes ever more expensive, it will be impossible to continue industrial farming very far into the future.

We should have been planning for this eventuality, possibly less than 10-20 years away, for decades.

If we wish to feed our population within as little as 10 years, we may need to have many more farmers on much smaller holdings, farming in a far more low-energy and sustainable manner, with mixed crops interspersed with productive tree and perennial crops. In order to achieve this in the short time left available we will need to draw upon the knowledge and abilities of our best scientific and educational institutions.

It looks like none of the solutions to the greatest clamity facing agriculture - diminishing oil supplies and skyrocketing population numbers - will be coming from the Centre for the study of Rural Australia.

Trees are not a feasible long term solution for two reasons:

(1) They reduce prime agricultural land, and

(2) No material net new carbon is stored in the trees after they mature.

Trees only have a 30 year benefit in carbon sequestration unless the trees are harvested and the carbon in the wood havested does not return to the atmosphere.

Who are this two jokers? Has this forum been taken over by rabid but ignorant greenies?

Terry is absolutely correct: trees are not a long-term solution. CSIRO studies reveal that sugar cane is actually much more efficient at storing carbon then anything else.

If Diana and delorax knew anything about storing carbon they would be talking about soil carbon, an even better way then trees.... Diana still has not understood that food must be grown so that she and her like can live another day.

Petrol might be running out but I'm very very very sure that the Seven Sisters (Caltex BP etc.) are already working, and have for several years, on the next source of energy....