From the Chair

BY OWEN MENKENSChairman, CANEGROWERS

All levels of government, both here and around the world, are looking at ways to legislate a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.

They are doing this by forcing large companies to report their emissions regularly. This includes not only their own emissions, but also the emissions of linked entities in their supply chain (scope 3).

Unfortunately, this means agriculture will get dragged into this emissions reporting process, even though we are still exempt. At CANEGROWERS , we decided that there is no point discussing emission reduction targets unless you know where growers have come from in our farming practices.

CANEGROWERS commissioned a report into the greenhouse gas emissions on farms in the Wet Tropics, Burdekin, and the Mackay regions, inputting all activities that relate to emissions.

When compared to a similar analysis done in the early 2000s, the report found a huge 30% reduction in on-farm emissions during that period due to practice change.

How is this possible you might ask?

As modern growers, we use practices that are not only more efficient they also reduce emissions.

A lot of the efficiency gains we have made on-farm were triggered by economic factors, like a low world sugar price.

It also means that we are one of the lowest emitters of CO2 per tonne of cane in the world. We have a good story to tell, and we should be proud of our current achievements.

The issue is, now that we have an assessment of emissions, how do we continue to reduce them in the future?

Fertiliser and fuel are the main area of emissions on farms and farmers know that if we put on less fertiliser than the SIX EASY STEPS methodology, we may all go broke.

It will come down to technology that probably hasn’t been developed yet. But there is still time for these changes to occur so no one should panic just yet.

Fertiliser manufacturers will have pressure on them to come up with lower emission blends as well.

The area which is concerning is the soil carbon space. There are a lot of tyre kickers out there trying to sell dreams that are not properly researched.

I would ask growers to think very carefully before signing up to programs that are not backed by good science and don’t focus on a profitable and productive farming businesses.

Beyond the individual decision of each farmer, as an industry, we don’t want to sign up to unrealistic emissions reductions targets. This is something some other industries have ended up doing.

We need a science-based approach because eventually all these processes must be tested against the needs of the industry.

I think we should be proud of what we have achieved as growers and not be reluctant to tell our story. We can play a sensible part in the need to reduce emissions, but we must be in the driver’s seat on how.

CANEGROWERS will continue to lobby for sensible rules in this space while also pushing the positive messages about our industry’s achievements.