Agriculture's new emerging industry

“I don’t think it’s any more complicated than the beef industry,” Remarkable NRM director John Gavin said.

“It’s just we have had hundreds of years of rolling into the beef industry and you guys have grown up with it and learnt about it all your life and changed with it.”

The South Australian based consultant, addressing the AgForce forum in Hugenden on carbon farming, said there were two ways for land holders to generate Australian carbon credit units (accu) – sequestration and emission avoidance.

Cattle producers could generate carbon credits by adopting herd and property efficiencies that reduce herd emissions, he said.

“This gives you a viable enterprise in the long term and may provide money to do the property or herd improvement you want to do,” Mr Gavin said.

Another option is savanna burning, of which there is around 40 projects under way. It involves early dry season, cooler fires rather than late dry season hot fires.

“This is where people have instituted a project and been through a process of reverse auction so they are now being paid for emission reductions through burning,” Mr Gavin said.

He told the forum that emissions targets were “critical” for land holders involved in carbon farming.

“The thing that drives the beef market is people’s continued desire to eat meat,” Mr Gavin said. 

“The only thing that drives the size of the carbon market is how much we need to reduce our emissions by. 

“If you are in the carbon game you want the emissions targets to be as low as possible because that’s what drives the market.”

Mr Gavin said the Australian Government was the biggest purchaser of carbon, and was pumping $2.5 billion into purchasing carbon credit units. 

About $1.8 billion was going into agriculture into projects like savanna burning, and vegetation projects in western Queensland and NSW. 

“Eighty per cent of Australia’s emission reductions are being met by agriculture right now,” Mr Gavin said.