Farmers ’unfairly targeted’ in emissions reduction quest

A South Gippsland beef cattle farmer tells The Australian Ag Podcast the federal government should be asking the gas sector to “tighten its belt”.

Farmers have found themselves the scapegoats for Australia’s methane emissions, despite declining agricultural greenhouse gases, says a Victorian beef farmer.

Farmers for Climate Action member Fergus O’Connor, who runs a beef operation in Victoria’s South Gippsland with wife Deb, told The Australian Ag Podcast farmers were being unfairly targeted for their methane emissions while industries such as the extractive gas industry were given a free pass to carry on as usual.

“I think we (agriculture) are an easy target,” Mr O’Connor said. “Australian methane levels are rising whereas our agricultural methane is going down. What is rising is greenhouse gases from gas extraction in particular.”

Agriculture Minister Murray Watt last week indicated his support for the US global methane pledge, which commits signatories to voluntary actions to reduce methane emissions by 30 per cent from 2020 levels by 2030.

Fergus O’Connor on his and wife Deb’s farm at Berry’s Creek. Picture: Zoe Phillips

Senator Watt said he had been consulting with farmers and farming lobby groups including the National Farmers’ Federation, Meat and Livestock Australia and Farmers for Climate Action “for some time” about his government’s intention to sign up to the agreement.

The O’Connors have planted 19,000 trees on their farm and introduced a mixed species of grasses, which has enabled them to turn off cattle earlier, therefore reducing methane emissions.

Mr O’Connor said farmers were being unfairly targeted for their emissions, ignoring years of work the sector had done to reduce its carbon footprint.

According to the National Farmers’ Federation, Between 1996 and 2016 agriculture has reduced its greenhouse gas emissions intensity by 63 per cent.

By contrast, the Australian Conservation Foundation found greenhouse gas emissions from gas and oil extraction in Australia rose 20 per cent between 2016 and 2021.

“But the federal government have said they don’t want to make the gas industry tighten their belts, they want farmers to do it, which is pretty unfair when you consider the fugitive emissions from gas alone – that is just leaking gas from their gas wells and their pipes – is equivalent to half the total emissions of greenhouses gases that agriculture produces,” Mr O’Connor said.

“To steer away from the gas industry and the fossil fuel industry and ask farmers to carry the can for them is pretty rude really. Something that gets up my nose in particular is that we subsidise the fossil fuel industry for billions and billions of dollars a year, and farmers don’t get subsidies – we are not like Europeans or Americans who actually survive on their subsidies. We’ve got to stand on our own two feet and now we are being asked to carry the fossil fuel industry as well.”