Excluding agriculture from the emissions policy could lock them out of a potentially lucrative market and Mr Littleproud said on Monday the government wanted to quantify the sector’s emissions reduction potential.
“Let’s go to the world proving that we can do this. We’ve got a great record in meeting Kyoto[targets],we’ll meet Paris[targets],and in fact beat Paris[targets],” he said.
The government’sTechnology Roadmap emission reduction policy says agricultural land could capture up to 90 million tonnes of greenhouse gases a year,or 17 per cent of Australia’s annual emissions. But to become economic the cost of measuring soil carbon,which currently requires in field measurement,needs to fall from $30 a hectare to $3 a hectare.
Emissions Reduction Minister Angus Taylor is focused on bringing down the cost of measuring soil carbon to drive uptake of carbon capture. A spokesman for the Minister said the price reduction could be a “game-changer”. Prime Minister Scott Morrison has flaggeda new national soils strategy is coming in the May federal budget,including a country-wide soil monitoring program and support for farmers to boost soil health.
Soils can trap significant volumes of greenhouse gas,which is sucked out of the atmosphere by plants and stored underground. The healthier the soil,the more carbon is sucked underground. Farmers encourage this process by changing cropping and grazing practices
National Farmers Federation president Fiona Simson supports the government’s goals for soil carbon,but warned its policy must be reformed because it was disadvantaging farmers who had made “phenomenally expensive” investments to switch to sustainable practices.