Consumers ‘will pay a premium’ for carbon-neutral food

As shoppers pay more attention to where their food comes from, carbon neutrality is tipped to become a selling point.

Coles Newmarket, Brisbane on Friday, May 4, 2018. Picture: Claudia Baxter/AAP

AUSTRALIAN shoppers’ appetite for carbon-neutral produce is likely to grow in the coming years as more consumers pay attention to where their food comes from.

Australian Export Grains Innovation Centre chief economist Ross Kingwell said the trend, already evident in other sectors such as the shift toward free-range chicken and pork, would eventually be felt across the board, including the grains sector.

“Consumers will look for that label and pay a premium for it,” Professor Kingwell told an ABARES webinar on helping farmers adapt to climate change.

Prof Kingwell — who lectures at University of Western Australia’s school of agriculture and environment — said demand would likely be felt by grain farmers on the east coast, where most of NSW’s wheat harvest was distributed domestically in the past five years.

In contrast, Prof Kingwell predicted it would be “a challenge” to get WA’s key grain markets such as Vietnam or the Philippines to pay a premium for carbon-neutral exports.

His comments come after Australia’s latest quarterly greenhouse gas inventory report showed agricultural emissions had increased for the first time in over a year. 

The rise was credited to easing drought conditions, which prompted increased crop production.

Prof Kingwell said WA emissions had reduced substantially since 1990, primarily due to the declined sheep population, from about 40 million to about 14 million head.

He said farmers’ switch to more crop-dominant farming had reduced emissions, however practices such as liming accounted for about 10 per cent of emissions meaning it was not a “win-win”.

According to ABARES research last year, climate change has seen farm profits decline about 23 per cent over the past 20 years, compared with pre-2000 levels.

Projections indicate that not lowering emissions now will see temperatures on farms rise 1.3C-2C by 2050, and rainfall decline by up to 30 per cent.

“All the climate projection models say we’re heading into a more adverse climatic regime, and so our entire agricultural industry will benefit from avoiding us heading into that territory,” Prof Kingwell said.

“But we can’t do that on our lonesome — it’s no good saying Australian agriculture needs to be carbon-neutral, if the atmosphere continues to worsen because no one else is.”

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