Farmers will be forced to reduce their carbon emissions eventually, according to Nutrien Ag Solutions sustainability field officer Callam Unger.
Speaking at a woolgrower information event in Elmore, Mr Unger said this was due to the climate targets set by the Australian government and businesses.
He said agriculture made up 14 per cent of Australia's overall carbon emissions but 60pc of its total methane emissions and 70pc of its nitrous oxide emissions.
He said Australia has a target of reducing net emissions by 43% by 2030, based on 2005 levels.
Mr Unger told farmers the sector must therefore step up to reduce its "share of the pie".
"We don't know when [emissions] reduction on farms will be enforced but we just know that it will happen," he said.
"As other industries and groups reduce their emissions, agriculture gradually becomes a larger chunk of the pie, if we don't change.
"Eventually we get hit and there's no way to get around it."
The Nutrien representative said all major companies in the food supply chain, such as Woolworths and Coles, have committed to emissions reduction targets.
He said one of the easiest ways for such companies to achieve these targets was to only work with farmers who have reduced their emissions.
"If we think about the emissions in the supply chain, if a company wants to reduce their emissions, their scope three emissions, the easiest way to do that is to buy products with less emissions associated with it," he said.
"What could come out of that is companies buying low-emission products and then less preferentially buying the rest.
"It's anyone's guess when this gets introduced to the market but it has to happen in order for Australia to hit those targets that we've set and in order for companies to hit the targets that they've set."
Mr Unger also said carbon taxes, legislative changes and trade requirements aimed at reducing emissions were potentially on the horizon.
He said banks will offer more competitive finance for low-emission farms and such farms will also benefit from more attractive insurance premiums.
"In terms of how we see [emission reductions] developing, the carrot usually goes to early adopters, the people driving innovation," he said.
"The majority then follows, seeing that they are getting access to carrots in the supply chain, and then the laggards typically get hit by policy and regulation."
A number of farmers at the Elmore event defended the agriculture sector's emissions footprint and pointed towards the "excessive" use of cars in urban areas.
Mr Unger said the government was taking action outside of agriculture as well.
He said fuel efficiency standards for vehicles had just been introduced.
"That's them hitting cars," he said.
In a similar way, other farmers asked Mr Unger about the carbon emissions from native wildlife, such as kangaroos.
They said the government was not doing anything to control their environmental footprint.
"We can only control what we can control," Mr Unger said.
"What the government does with their native animal management, that's anyone's guess."
The Nutrien field officer said no one was suggesting that farmers were to incur a major cost to reduce their emissions.
"It's not realistic for the government to say you have to go and buy this now and then put it in the system," he said.
"If they do go that way, they're going to have to pay for a bit of it.
"Nobody is talking about implementing emissions reductions in the supply chain next year but it's going to happen within the next 10 years or so.
"It's just something to be very aware of."
Measurement
On what farmers could do now to prepare for enforced emission reductions, Mr Unger said they should figure out where they're starting from on their farms.
He suggested the "Nutrien Emissions Profile" service as a means of farmers doing this.
"We're taking all your input information and putting it through a model which says how much gas is being emitted and what gas," he said.
"It goes into a report and then we give you your strategies for how you could reduce it if you wanted to go that way.
"It's not anybody saying that you have to go that way now or next year.
"It's more of a visualisation for showing what the emissions profile of the business looks like and what I might need to do in the future going forward."
Mr Unger said the service for farmers is free, for now, and that ideally it would be an annual measurement exercise on farms.
"This is an annual process where we would like all our growers to do it every year and then we compare that performance for how they're going against how they did last year," he said.
"For Nutrien growers at the moment it's free and it's not looking like there's going to be a charge for the service at least for the next couple of months. "
