Browse > Home / Farming, News, Rural / Farmers concerned about carbon trading

Farmers concerned about carbon trading

Posted on December 5, 2008, 9:09am

The impact of carbon trading on farmers is developing into the single biggest issue in the history of Australian agriculture, according to a state spokesman for the sector.

Kalangadoo grazier and South Australian Farmers Federation board member Kent Martin said it was not just the potential for tax-break “carbon sink forests” to compete for prime agricultural land and water that was of concern.

He said carbon trading would have broad repercussions and not necessarily achieve its aim unless it was introduced on a global scale.

“The whole world needs to do something or we are wasting our time and be will worse off,” he said.

“We have a major concern about how the process has been put together and regardless of whether agriculture is covered in the trading scheme or not, there will still be increased costs — it will change the way farmers do business.”

That concern has been strong enough for Mr Martin to address a senate committee and be given the task of forming a special taskforce for SAFF after the body has set the matter as a top priority.

Mr Martin said the Federal Government’s carbon emissions trading scheme was too simplistic.

He said the carbon sink component did not take into account the need to protect water resources and appropriately site forestry away from prime agricultural areas, particularly as concerns were growing over a predicted world food shortage.

“In the current drought situation we would have thought competition for water was vitally important,” he said.

He said the scheme was also forestry-centric and did not recognise the role farmers could play trapping carbon in soil, but instead focused on expansion of plantations that would also not provide broader biodiversity benefits available through rehabilitating bushland.

Meanwhile, the government scheme is unlikely to provide any significant boost to the Green Triangle’s forestry sector.

Plantation company ITC chief executive Vince Erasmus said he was still awaiting the outcome of the government’s white paper on climate change.

But he said it appeared carbon sink development would be focused on planting of trees for long-term growth, rather than rotational harvest.

“It will probably help farmers who want to plant carbon sinks, but won’t be an incentive for us or a core driver of our business,” he said.

He said carbon sink forests could help create environmental balance if grown long term on land with no other commercial purpose.

“Overwhelmingly, planting trees and leaving them in the ground has to be good for the environment,” he said.

Tags: , ,  

Comments

Comments are closed.