Grain Growers seeks more informed farmers on greenhouse gas targets

Grain Growers Limited is on the front foot to ensure grain producers understand carbon facts before the upcoming global climate change summit.

Diesel, fertiliser application and crop residues are major sources of the greenhouse gas footprint on a wheat farm. Picture: ZOE PHILLIPS

Squabbles may be getting more intense between the Federal Liberals and some of the more conservative National Party members as the Glasgow global climate summit approaches, but the grain industry doesn’t want farmers uninformed.

Grain Growers Limited has produced a paper, Carbon and Cropping, to help farmers make head or tail of the jargon and where the biggest greenhouse emissions emanate from on their farms.

“There are a lot of voices out there and it is hard to know who is right and who is wrong,” said GGL chairman Brett Hosking.

“This is a document useful to all growers to be able to think about their own farms and businesses and what they can do to make a difference.

“It’s about understanding what it all means and how it fits together and who we can trust and listen to.”

While Australia’s Paris 2030 targets fall behind European and North American countries, it is not as bad as some of its major customers.

According to the Department of Environment, South Korea has committed to a 4 per cent cut by 2030, while China has gone the opposite direction by massively increasing its greenhouse gas emissions.

Graph showing carbon pledges from different nations. Source: Included

But the Carbon and Cropping paper said many countries had now pledged to go further than their initial Paris Agreement targets.

The Grain Growers document identifies fertiliser use accounting for 31 per cent of the greenhouse gas footprint for wheat production, while 27 per cent is embedded in the manufacturing of those fertilisers.

A big emitter, at 15 per cent, is soil residue as microbes break them down into carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide and methane.

Emissions embedded in farm chemical manufacture at 12 per cent and diesel use in tractors at 11 per cent are the other major contributors to wheat’s carbon footprint.

Mr Hosking said Australian farmers needed to be ahead of their competitors in other countries and take advantage of marketing opportunities.

“There is a lot of discussion on carbon targets,” he said.

“But we are exposed very much to the climate.

“If our climate suddenly gets wetter, then we’re the ones dealing with the floods or waterlogged paddocks.

“As the climate gets dryer, then we are also the ones dealing with the droughts.

“We’ve probably got the most skin in this game to try to get this space right to make a difference.”