AGRICULTURE may be excluded from the Federal Government's proposed Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, but farmers should still be on the front foot looking for alternatives, says Carbon Advantage executive director Matthew Reddy.
Speaking at an Upper South East and Lower SE Beef Group carbon forum at Naracoorte last Friday, he said farmers would be faced with higher fuel and fertiliser input costs. As such, they should looking to generate their own alternative power, such as wind turbines, or participate directly in the carbon-offset scheme using resources from their farms.
"Either way, when the carbon trading scheme covers the power and fuel sectors input costs for ag will rise, and consumers and large retailers will also be looking for evidence of more sustainable production including carbon," he said.
He said there would be opportunities for farmers to participate in projects with soil carbon sequestration, methane management in livestock and the use of biochars and biofuels.
Agroforestry also had the potential to provide returns of $100 a tonne to $200 per hectare per year, with the average area on a per hectare basis capturing between 5-10t carbon/ha/year.
Carbon units were trading for about $25-$30/t in the European Union compliance market, but Australian farmers were able to receive about $20/t gross under the voluntary Landcare Carbon Smart Program.
In July, the National Carbon Offset Standard would replace the Greenhouse Friendly Program, and this was the best place for individual farmers and groups of farmers to participate in an accredited scheme.
He encouraged producers in the South East or other regions to use their existing grower and production groups to trade their carbon credits as a block.
"You really want to be looking for other options joining groups of farmers in bigger schemes which have national significance to spread costs and aggregate credits so you can get a higher price," he said.
Across Australia, there had already been successful examples of groups participating in the GFP, including Auscarbon in Western Australia, the Northern United Forestry Group, and the Basco Farming Group.
The farming sector might be the second-largest emitter of greenhouse gases - mainly methane and nitrous oxide - but it was a little known fact that agriculture had reduced its emissions since 1990 while other industry's emissions continued to increase.
"Our sector has reduced our national emission profile - we have only met our emission targets through reduction in emissions in agriculture, clearing bans and increases in growth of the National Forest Extent," he said.
"We have done the heavy lifting in our sector through efficiency, often through destocking in the drought, but no other sector can demonstrate reductions in emissions whereas agriculture can."
Mr Reddy proposed agriculture should participate in a sectoral no-lose target where credits could be returned to farmers if the sector met its offset targets, but there was no penalty if its emissions were higher.
"It is still unclear whether agriculture will be part of a CPRS down the track but the government's large investment in better accounting through the Department of Primary Industry and CSIRO suggest they are looking at how to account for methane emissions," he said.
* More on CPRS in Stock Journal, February 11 issue.
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