Federal Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry Minister Murray Watt will bring together more than 150 stakeholders for high-level conversations about how to de-carbonise the agriculture industry.
Farmers, peak agricultural lobby groups, researchers, environmental groups, energy experts and senior departmental staff from around the country will converge on the Darling Downs in late May to discuss how the sector can meet its own climate goals.
While it has taken a back seat to decarbonising transport and energy production, Australia’s agriculture sector is carbon intensive, accounting for about 18% of Australia’s emissions.
CSIRO report highlighted the difficulties of sector-wide reform in a recent discussion paper. Without sector-wide reform, productivity is expected to drop by up to 50% in some areas. But changing the way food and fibre are produced in Australia requires significant investment from either government or the agriculture sector itself.
Farmers are damned if they do and damned if they don’t.
National Farmers’ Federation president David Jochinke said collaboration with government and other stakeholders on these issues is critical to produce outcomes that would enable the sector to maintain productivity and profitability into the future.
“Achieving net zero as a sector may be beyond what’s technologically possible, so co-designing innovation and research with government needs to be a priority,” he said.
“We look forward to getting stuck into these conversations to help farmers transition to lower emissions and higher profitability.”
The summit will be a chance for industry to discuss the Ag and Land Sector Decarbonisation Plan, one of six such plans for various industry sectors under the government’s Net Zero 2050 Plan, forming part of the overall consultation process for the climate abatement agenda.
The government appears keen to be seen consulting extensively with industry on this plan, having already received 230 submissions to the discussion paper.
A significant portion of the feedback points to the need for certainty. Stakeholders have asked for “large-scale coordinated funding and long-term investment”, “capacity building for trusted advisors and landholders” and “system level investments such as improved greenhouse gas accounting”.
Watt reiterated the government had no plans to set a net-zero target for the sector as a whole, pointing to the fact farmers are already likely to be more affected than most by climate change.
“They are facing more severe and frequent natural disasters, which are having a direct financial impact on their businesses … changes in seasonal conditions have already reduced average Australian farm profits by $29,000 over the past 20 years,” he said.
“We will not be setting an emissions reduction target for our agriculture sector, but the sector will need to contribute to achieving our economy-wide emissions reduction targets.
“Bringing together the leaders of industry for this Summit will galvanise the sector around these ideas and chart a unified way forward to achieve productive outcomes.”
While the summit will help finalise the coming sustainable agriculture plan, some action is already underway.
Last year, Agriculture Ministers jointly endorsed the National Statement on Climate Change and Agriculture — a national statement of commitment to work in partnership with the agriculture sector to it transform it into a world-leading climate-smart producer of food and fibre.
These include the Future Drought Fund, National Soil Strategy, a new biosecurity regime and the Emissions Reduction Fund.
Programs are underway to encourage investment and on-farm use of methane-reducing feed supplements like asparagopsis oil.
Farmers for Climate Action chair and beef producer Brett Hall said good faith collaboration between industry and government would ensure the best possible outcomes.
“We want to do our bit as custodians already leading in this area, with some farms having already achieved net zero emissions on farm,” he said.
‘We know that there is much to do across different commodities across our nation to create a profitable, productive and sustainable agriculture sector that all Australians can be proud of. We know agriculture can improve productivity as it reduces emissions, because we’ve already done it and we’re doing it every day.
“We all know goals are achieved when people work together.”
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