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With Parliament’s first sitting week since the election, the Climate Change Bill with a 43% emissions reduction target will be one of the key pieces of legislation introduced.

Having completed significant projects in this space including the Carbon Calculators report and the Carbon and Cropping report as well as developing with growers across Australia a Climate Change policy that seeks to maintain Australia’s global competitiveness while reducing emissions and increasing carbon sequestration, GrainGrowers is calling on government to recognise the need to invest in new technology and domestic manufacturing, to ensure growers have the tools and resources they need to achieve targets that they have set themselves as an industry.

"Putting the target in law is one thing but now we want to see government back our industry and fast-track the development of tools, data and technologies so farmers can measure their baseline understand which farming practices best deliver sustainable growth.” said Nigel Corish, GrainGrowers Board Director, and QLD grower.

“We know Australian grain production is a low emitter by world standards and many farmers here continue to look at reducing their net emission. But it is still a complicated space and the work GrainGrowers has done has demonstrated that currently, there’s no ‘one tool’ that is fit for grower purposes in measuring and recording emissions on their farm.” said Nigel.

“Our Carbon Calculator report highlighted how the variety of resources are out there, and many with useful elements. But overall, there isn’t currently anything 100% fit for purpose on a farm. The report showed there was too much data variability.”

GrainGrowers work has shown that growers can keep doing their job of producing safe and nutritious grain and reduce emissions with focus on better utilisation of nitrogen inputs. More nitrogen that gets into the crop means a higher yield and less greenhouse gas released into the atmosphere.

GrainGrowers is also calling for ways to reduce the nearly 40% of an Australian farm’s scope 3 emissions that are embed in inputs like fertilizer and chemicals.

“That’s a lot of emissions being trucked onto our farms. We don’t want knee jerk responses like we’ve seen overseas. This is not about reducing inputs because we need the inputs to grow the crop. But let’s find better ways to manufacture low emission inputs and deliver food security and contribute to the 43% target. Growers have been proactive in trying to understand what this means for their farming practices.”

“Our Carbon and Cropping report has been incredibly well received by growers across the country who are trying to get up to speed on the best way to store carbon and lower emissions, while also doing their job which is producing safe and nutritious Australian grains.”

“It’s incredibly important that as the Climate Change Bill is discussed by both sides of Parliament, that damaging actions that we’ve seen introduced in other countries that penalise farmers and threaten food security don’t get a look in here. Growers are keen to be a part of the solution and it’s in everyone’s interests to work together to ensure those who are on the farm every day have the tools in place they need in this space.”

“GrainGrowers supports net zero carbon by 2050 and is keen to ensure the regulatory and policy settings are right to achieve this.”

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