One of Australia’s Pioneers of Green Farming Terry McCosker writes:
Photo of Terry McCosker who through his private consulting company RCS had trained over 10,000 Australian farmers in green farming over the last 25 years
I have just read through Natalies Williams post and the comments it has stimulated. As an originator of much of the “green” change which is accelerating through rural Australia I am very happy to see the quality of the debate and the similarity of ideas.
I would like to summarize what I see as some key issues which you influential people can help address.
1. Farmbiz has been a catalyst in bringing about change in rural Australia. I have data which shows that a one off $1m expenditure by Farmbiz to our clients has increased the ROA on those same people by $56m pa.
Most of this change has been brought about by reducing external chemical, fuel & fertilizer inputs and
changing the fundamental practices of land management to ones which are ecologically renewing.
One of the first actions of the “Education Revolution” party, was to scrap this investment.
2. Change does not occur without an attitudinal shift combined with motivational forces. Very high quality Education is the key to both these. One can only wonder why subsidised education is not seen as a good investment in the future.
3. I totally agree with the comments about Australian farmers having the ability to change quickly, effectively and profitably to become carbon farmers if properly incentivised.
In many regions in Australia, the Gross Margin per Ha from soil carbon sequestration can exceed the GM/ha of the production system currently running on it (@$25/t CO2e).
To achieve this, soil carbon should be included as an “opt-in” programme within the ETS. Soil carbon can be effectively measured to a 95% confidence level, NOW.
Without acceptance of soil carbon at a Fed and Kyoto level, we are losing a great deal of time we do not have to squander.
3. Extreme positions either from the rural community or an urban green community are not productive. At the centre we are aligned.
Having trained over 10,000 Australian farmers and graziers over the last 25 years, I know that our rural community is generally very concerned about the environment (Natalie & Glen are just one outstanding example).
However, just like the extreme greens, there are extreme rednecks still kicking. We must all ignore the 10 to 20% on each end of the distribution curve and get on with trying to save our planet. It desperately needs our collective help!!
Yours in positive change. Terry McCosker
2 Comments
There absolutely is a need for financial incentives to be in place for farmers to sequester carbon in soil and ecosystems as soon as possible. Carbon pricing should cover all land use activities, not just those accounted for under the Kyoto protocol. There are a whole lot of problems with including land use activities in the ETS, which mean that there is no way that soil carbon will be included in the ETS now. However, it is very important to remember that inclusion in the ETS is not the only way to apply carbon pricing.
If only some land use activities are included in the ETS, or activities are covered on an opt-in basis, there is a serious risk that there will be carbon leakage will occur from activities that are covered to activities that are not covered. For example, if tree plantations are used for storing carbon, there will be less wood available for wood products, and more demand for wood from native forests. Garnaut states (Final Report, Ch 22, p558):
Comprehensively covering all emissions from land use activities would have serious measurement, accounting and verification issues. For example, conservative estimates suggest that over 250 Mt CO2 could be sequestered in Australia’s rangelands per year through better grazing practices and feral animal control. This would be at rates of less than 0.1 tonne per hectare. Accounting for and verifying emissions at this scale just is not feasible at the accuracy and precision required for inclusion in an ETS. An ETS requires a high degree of precision because activities that have uncertain emissions introduce uncertainty into the whole scheme, it would no longer be certain whether one permit equates to one tonne of carbon dioxide anymore. Furthermore, inclusion of activities not accounted for under the Kyoto protocol could make international trading difficult.
Because so many opportunities for biosequestration are available, including them in an ETS would lead to the carbon price collapsing, farmers sequestering carbon would lose out, there will be no more incentive for sequestration, and the environment would lose out.
Fortunately inclusion in an ETS is not the only form of carbon pricing. For example, it would be quite easy to apply a carbon tax (which can be negative) to land use sectors. The tax could possibly be based on the carbon price in the ETS. The requirements for precise measurement would no longer be necessary, because uncertainty in measurement would not lead to distortions in the carbon price. This would make it much easier to cover all forms of land use emissions and sequestration, including soil carbon.