There's change in the air and it's not just carbon.
With rising temperatures and atmospheric carbon, there's also a rise in awareness of imminent issues surrounding this and particularly how it will affect the agricultural sector.
The Corrigin Farm Improvement Group (CFIG) is committed to its members and its motto to 'remain ahead of the trend' and explore relevant issues facing the agricultural industry, and with AgZero2030, hosted a forum and farm visit on March 15.
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The 'Navigating Decarbonisation in Agriculture and Rural Communities' forum was a thorough exploration of the rapidly evolving carbon emission discussion.
Attendees from all levels of the agricultural industry were given plenty to think about from eight guest speakers, all of whom brought their perspective and expertise to the decarbonisation conversation.
The most prominent points made were:
- Change needs to happen now as the planet is getting hotter and drier faster than first thought.
- Benchmarking carbon emissions associated with your agribusiness provides a baseline set of data/starting point for working out where improvements can be made and carbon emissions can be reduced.
- In addition to historical metrics of yield and quality, a third metric of sustainability needs to be applied to modern farming systems.
- Carbon taxes are already a reality.
Two keynote speakers, world-renowned energy futurist Ray Wills and professor of sustainability Peter Newman provided engaging and thought-provoking presentations.
Professor Wills presented several slides outlining climate-smart technologies and trends over time, including those particularly relevant to agriculture, that are already in development and being rolled out imminently.
He offered a snapshot of what a future economy could potentially look like, while discussing the exponential expansion of climate-smart technology and a decarbonised market.
"Everything within energy transition is growing exponentially," professor Wills said.
"The big corporate players are already making significant changes and commitments in this space and that has begun to filter down."
Professor Wills showed graphs of data, trends and predictions, including the global transition to electric vehicles (EVs) which predicts that in five years, the global annual vehicle sales will be 100 per cent battery EVs.
Following that, he demonstrated how potential alternative food systems could emerge in existing agricultural areas, such as vertical farming, aquaponics, insect farming, algae farming, micro greens and fungi cultivation.
Professor Newman spoke about the challenges the global economy faces, but also reflected on the positive changes already being made and having an impact.
Renewable energy, such as solar and wind, plus more efficient batteries and electric vehicles are readily available in the current market, helping with the shift to reducing carbon emissions.
There are also plenty of new and more advanced technologies and innovations presently in production and due to be rolled out within the next five years, he said.
Carbon taxes are already a reality, with the European Union introducing a trial period of its carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM) that requires all imports to meet EU carbon standards and expectations.It essentially means if a business is part of the supply chain selling produce or products directly or indirectly into Europe, EU carbon tax tariffs will be applied and the business will be penalised.
It's measures such as this that indicate change is rapidly evolving on a global scale and Australia needs to adapt to keep pace with traditional markets such as the EU and China.
"It's never been more important to think global, act local," professor Newman said.
"There is a lot of nonsense talked about China (and their emissions), but they are not the problem.
"China has gone further down the track to NetZero than anyone, they are very good at mass production and producing renewable energy products, such as solar cells and wind technology.
"We don't need to be scared of them, we need partnerships with them instead.
"Change has to be embraced, it needs to be embraced now and that is the challenge."
Making practical changes now was also the theme thoroughly covered by Nutrien Ag Solutions agronomist and sustainability field manager Kirsty Smith, who provided producers with several practical measures that can be implemented immediately.
Part of her role is to educate farmers on including a third metric of sustainability, in addition to using the historical metrics of yield and quality and engage in best practice agronomy.
Ms Smith encouraged producers to talk to their advisers and agronomists about baselining and collecting the data required to quantify the carbon outputs of their business, then implement practical ag solutions to begin reducing emissions.
"The rate of change curve is coming thick and fast and it's great to see everyone starting to switch on (to decarbonisation), from big business through to consultants and growers," Ms Smith said.
"There are so many actions that can be taken now with both cropping and livestock, so once we bring the growers along and help educate them, we expect this to move fast.
"Government and technology tend to work slowly, but there is a lot of good work being done at all levels and it's gathering momentum."
Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development (DPIRD) program manager Mandy Curnow spoke about the sectorial emissions reduction strategy with a strong focus on agriculture, which mainly centred around baselining individual agricultural businesses' carbon emissions.
Ms Curnow was followed by DPIRD research scientist Meredith Guthrie, who added science and research to the conversation on emission levels, outlining WA climate trends and projections with different emission scenarios.
CSBP senior sustainable agriculture advisor Deb Turner provided a thorough snapshot of the role fertilisers play in carbon emissions from agricultural activities, giving a fascinating insight into the work CSBP is currently undertaking to ensure a low carbon farming future.
Whether its increasing nitrogen use efficiency (NUE), making other existing fertilisers more efficient or developing new products such as their newly released Urea Sustain, Ms Turner said the company was committed to improving efficiency and decreasing fertiliser contribution to carbon emissions.
The final speaker, Farmanco management consultant Stacey Bell-Crookes detailed how to benchmark farm business emissions and explore different market opportunities.
It was then onto a farm visit to local Corrigin producers Cindy Stevens and Simon Wallwork's property, for an on the ground chat about new techniques in soil amelioration, tree planting and firsthand experiences around soil and tree carbon projects.
Many interesting and productive discussions were had, including one attendee who has already had extensive experience with marketing low carbon beef to the domestic market and the direction beef production is headed.
CFIG and AgZero2030 acknowledged and thanked the event's sponsors CSBP, Nutrien Ag Solutions and DPIRD.
