The NFF’s climate policy is clear: farming
and agriculture cannot be worse off going forward with any carbon commitments
or emissions reduction schemes.
The NFF has a clear climate change
policy that supports an economy-wide NCZ 2050 target with two clear caveats –
that there is an economically viable pathway forward and agriculture is not
worse off.
Agriculture is in a unique position
– different to any other industry, in that farmers can sequester carbon and
reduce emissions. Agriculture is too important to leave out and too important to
ignore.
Agriculture has been hurt in the
past, through the Kyoto experience, when farmers were left carrying the burden
of the nation’s emissions reduction task. That simply can’t be allowed to
happen again.
Between 1996 and 2016, agriculture
has reduced its greenhouse gas emissions intensity by 63 per cent. The red meat
sector has reduced CO2e- emissions by 56.7 per cent since 2005.
Farmers are in the box seat to seize
the opportunities from a reduced emissions future – and many are already doing
just that. Any policy that restricts opportunities available to farmers and
rural and regional communities would clearly be a negative outcome.
A demonstrated proactive approach to
emissions reduction, is also a factor for continued and expanded access to valuable
export markets.
There is a lot of positive work
underway, led by both government and industry, to establish the benchmarks and
frameworks needed to measure agriculture’s contribution to sequestering and
reducing emissions, particularly in the highly complex area of soil carbon.
It is important this work is
completed before determining agriculture’s role in any national emissions
reduction target. Time to develop better decision tools and continue to explore
innovation leaps, and then implement them, are very important in the complex
world of agriculture.
Care needs to be taken that agricultural land does not get transferred into carbon sinks that are subeconomic, havens for feral plants and animals and a fire risk. Offsetting is a legitimate solution that must meet economic viability thresholds that allow benchmarked income and proper management.
