News and Features

Climate change will have a growing impact on agriculture. The science world, economists and government are attempting to make sense of what it all means and what can be done to respond.

The Garnaut report,  an independent study conducted by economist Professor Ross Garnaut, commissioned by Australia's Commonwealth, state and territory governments and presented to government on the 30th September 2008 provides an estimation of the economic affect of climate change and presents recommendations for responding. A copy of the report together with other useful information resources can be downloaded from the Garnaut Climate Change Review website.

Like other peak industry bodies, the National Farmers Federation responded to the Garnaut report. A summary of their response is available from the NFF website. 

In  the 'Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme Paper ', produced in July 2008,  the the Federal government proposed a Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS) to be introduced in 2011. Following recommendations from the Garnaut report, agriculture will be exempt from complying with the scheme until at least 2015. Click here to view a summary Green Paper on the proposed CPRS, produced by the Department of Climate Change.

Agriculture is however a relatively large emitter of green house gases. "The agricultural sector contributes around 16 per cent of national greenhouse gas emissions, mainly as methane lost during rumen digestion (enteric methane) and nitrous oxide lost from nitrogen fertilisers, animal excreta and soils, both potent greenhouse gases." 

Carbon trading, which is a part of the CPR Scheme will have a significant impact on agriculture, whether the exemptions for agriculture under the CPRS continues or not.  Three helpful articles provide a background to the impact of agriculture on carbon emissions and issues around the introduction of carbon trading  to this sector.

One article produced by Land and Water Australia titled Agriculture, Forestry and Emmissions Trading: how to participate? provides a clear and detailed summary of the issues around carbon trading and greehhouse emmissions for Australian agriculture.
A second article produced by Science Alert gives an overview of the impact of agriculture on carbon emissions. A third article produced by the Australian Academy of Science covers a broader range of topics relating to agriculture, climate change and carbon trading. 

The University of Melbourne Greenhouse In Agriculture website has developed a 'calculator' for different commodity producers to predict the emmisions likely to result from their activities. The calculator can be downloaded in an Excel Spreadsheet version.