A Romsey prime lamb producer says his local council's for carbon neutrality by 2030 could be given a huge boost by the encouragement of of carbon farming.
Moffitts Farm owner Patrick Francis said "as yet" Macedon Ranges Shire Council had little idea about carbon farming and how it could be implemented in conjunction with landowners.
He said Moffitts Farm, which turns off Wiltipoll lambs, had been carbon neutral since 2005.
The family had turned over 13 hectares - or 23 per cent of the pastureland - being revegetated with agroforestry blocks, conservation corridors and riparian zone (waterways) planting.
The livestock graze on pastures of brassica, chicory, plantain, lucerne and clovers
Mr Francis suggested Macedon should encourage farmers to measure their greenhouse gas emissions so they could take action to reduce them, while encouraging on-farm revegetation, aimed at carbon abatement.
"[The council] is working with local townspeople to adapt to climate change but is not working on reducing the big emissions sources outside of green energy and electric passenger vehicles," he said.
"It has no strategy for working with farmers, to advance carbon farming, in particular the Emission Reduction Funds reafforestation on pasture land method."
Mr Francis said that was highly relevant in peri-urban farming zones, as most landowners were not in the business of profitable farming, many had no livestock, while some were land banking, which often resulted in farm ecosystem neglect.
"We know to be carbon neutral by 2030 and 2050 means the shire must reduce emissions and or abate tens of thousands of tonnes of CO2e per year by 2030 and by 2050," he said.
The shire's farming and rural conservation zone had enormous potential to become a major greenhouse gas sink while protecting and enhancing the region's biodiversity.
"The greatest opportunity for greenhouse gas sequestration, particularly CO2, comes from abatement, be it protecting and enhancing remnant vegetation or revegetation on pasture land," he said.
"Landowners in the farm and conservation zones should be encouraged and even incentivised to plant up to 25 per cent of their pasture land area to trees for boutique agro-forestry or conservation or a combination of both," he told council in a submission on future land use across the shire.
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He said Moffitts Farm currently sequestered about 200 tonnes of CO2e a year and would continue to do so until around 2035 when its revegetation CO2 abatement reached equilibrium.
"If the same percentage of revegetation was achieved shire wide on the 85,000 ha of farmland, the annual greenhouse gas sequestration would be around 340,000 tonnes of CO2e - that's more than total agricultural emissions," Mr Francis said.
And one of Australia's leading experts in greenhouse gas emissions and carbon balance on farms said the plan could be part of a wider suite of measures to reach net zero.
FLINTpro Director of Science: Agricultural Emissions Dr Natalie Doran-Browne lives in the shire, where she is a partner in the Wondermazing Honey Bees apiary business.
"In terms of agriculture, there is sometimes a trade-off between tree planting and agricultural production - there needs to be some care in how that is actually implemented," Dr Doran-Browne said.
"Often there is some more marginal land on a property, or there might be areas where trees offer co-benefits for livestock, such as shade and shelter," she said.
Research had shown that native pollinators, attracted by tree planting, saw increased pollination of crops and horticulture.
But she said emissions reduction needed to be considered across the whole council.
"Macedon Ranges did a snapshot of their emissions and 49 per cent were coming from electricity production, 24pc from transport and 10pc from agriculture," she said.
"While I do think planting trees is a great option for landowners, people in agricultural production still need to make it work with their farming systems.
"There are a number of options that need to be considered, above and beyond carbon storage, and those would be around renewable energy and options that might occur at the residential level or for those who have rural properties and acreage."
She said there was potential for smaller wind turbines, in areas where there was not sufficient sunlight to generate a significant amount of solar power.
Selling carbon offsets meant they could not be claimed against the emissions produced, so farmers would be better off maintaining their own credits.
"You have essentially sold the offsets to someone else, who will be offsetting their own emissions," she said.
"There are a lot of market and policy drivers that are requiring farmers to think about their emissions profiles, how to reduce them and get down to either low, or carbon neutral, levels."
It would be difficult for small landholders to plant trees on up to a quarter of their properties, she said.
"The long and the short of it is there no silver bullet, but there are many, many good options that can help us reduce emissions," she said.
"One of those is the efficiencies of systems by trying to reduce any waste, that might mean removing livestock that are not performing very well.
"It might be better to improve the genetics of your herd or flock."
Regenerative agriculture could also help reduce emissions, she said.
Macedon Ranges Shire Council Planning and Environment director Rebecca Stockfeld said the shire had been investigating ways to support revegetation and carbon offsetting on private land.
"This aligns with council targeting zero net emissions for its operations by 2030, as part of the Counting Down to Zero plan adopted late last year," she said.
"To help meet this target, council will need to purchase, or create, carbon offsets."
Ms Stockfield said one option currently being explored, led by the North Central Catchment Management Authority, was a Community Carbon Pilot to create biodiverse offsets that provided social and economic benefits to the community.
"This option has dual benefits as it would create carbon offsets, while also allowing council to progress a key objective of our Biodiversity Strategy (2018), which is to increase the extent of native vegetation cover for connectivity via the creation of biolinks," Ms Stockfield said.
The pilot would verify the modelled viability of creating local carbon offsets through revegetation and would enable council to offset 25 tonnes of CO2-e each year.
It would also identify whether the concept could be increased in scale, to offset a greater number of residual emissions in the future.
Andrew Miller
I'm a general reporter with Stock & Land, with a special interest in irrigation issues. I completed my cadetship, with the Age, in 1980. Over my career, I've worked for ABC radio news (Mt Isa, Qld) and at provincial and suburban newspapers.
I'm a general reporter with Stock & Land, with a special interest in irrigation issues. I completed my cadetship, with the Age, in 1980. Over my career, I've worked for ABC radio news (Mt Isa, Qld) and at provincial and suburban newspapers.
