Could you be on the Positive List?

Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Could your product or practice be eligible to appear on the Carbon Farming Initiative Positive List? Companies and individuals who have innovative carbon farming practices or products that reduce emissions or sequester carbon can apply. The benefits for you are these:

Being on the Positive List certifies that your product or practice is not common practice and that emissions avoided or sequestered via them have been declared "Additional" by the Minister.
Being on the Positive list means your product or practice can be used as part of a 'methodology' for a offsets project under the Carbon Farming Initiative. (The Government recently announced grants to help innovators write up their brilliant products and practices into methodologies (or "meths"), with the help of scientists and other experts.
You could earn royalties every time your innovation is used, if you have genuine intellectual property in your "meth".

Go to the Positive List page on the Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency website, download the Positive List Guidelines and the short Positive List Proposal Form and fill it out. It is easy to be confused. For instance, the Guidelines state that offsets "will not be available for projects that are required by law" in one place, and "activities that are required by law" will be listed "in some circumstances"in another. So, if your product or practice is mandated by regulation, don't let that stop you. Contact the Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency on (02) 6159 7000 to ask what those "circumstances" are.

The other barrier to listing is "common practice" - ie. if the activity is already widely adopted. It is assumed that once between 10% and 30% of landholders in a location or industry or "environment" have taken up the practice - in order to earn offsets - the balance will adopt it without the incentive of the offsets and therefore the emissions avoided or sequestered resulting would have happened anyway and are therefore not additional. An activity can be uncommon for all sorts of reasons: it is unusual in certain regions; it is unusual on the scale proposed; it is unusual at a particular time; it is a genuine variant of an activity. "The activity must be carefully defined to allow for an accurate assessment of whether or not it is not already common," says the Guidelines. This means you should be very specific defining your activity. It is recommended that you identify a relevant comparison group of non-users to "capture the circumstances in which the activity is uncommon".

The Government will be surveying farmers every couple of years to get a picture of penetration of activities. This is important to understand: your activity can be delisted as soon as it looks like being a success. But the benefits of being on the Positive List outweigh the difficulties.

How to eat an elephant (or engage with the Carbon Farming Initiative)

Tuesday, May 22, 2012

You eat an elephant one bite at a time. And so it is with the Carbon Farming Initiative. Here is a safety-first path for farmers who want to take advantage for this one-in-a-generation opportunity. It is a toe-in-the-water approach for maximum risk management and learning by doing.

Step 1. Trees on farm. Identify a small area that could benefit from planting native trees. It could be a recharge zone causing salt expression further down the slope. It could be a erosion zone that needs to be stablilised. You could chose to plant 10ha-20ha, but make it part of a larger plan for your farm, a plan you could execute as you become more comfortable with the process.
Step 2. Reduction in nitrous oxide emissions from fertiliser application. (At least two methodologies should be available later this year.) This can be done in any number of ways: straight reduction in NPK fertiliser; shift to precision application; part-replacement of fertiliser by bioferts; full replacement of fertiliser with biofert.
Step 3: Reduction in methane emissions from livestock. (Methodology coming.)
Step 4: Soil carbon sequestration. By this time you have had a chance to get used to the culture of the CFI - measuring and reporting on the activities; the concept of 100 Years; the production benefits of soil carbon, etc. You earn instant offsets for the emissions avoidance activities (nitrous oxide and methane) and delayed offsets (eg. 5 years, etc.) for carbon captured and held in vegetation and soils.

This is just one example of the way you can take a staged approach to building a carbon farming portfolio. It is entirely voluntary. Your commitment deepens slowly so you can retreat early in the process. As you get closer to it, your elephant will shrink.

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Reds under the bed, on the tractor, and in the shed?

Friday, May 18, 2012

I like the MP for Parkes Mark Coulton. I stood against him when he was first elected in 2007. He showed he has a fine sense of the hystorical in Parliament on Thursday when he warned farmers to stay away from the Carbon Farming Initiative because it could lead to the failure of Australian agriculture. He announced that farmers had to sign up for the CFI and submit themselves to being told what to do by the government. He's right, of course. Famous failed experiments of state-controlled agriculture led to famine and disaster in the Soviet Union and China and more recently North Korea and Zimbabwe. But Mark need not worry. The CFI is still voluntary. In fact, the CFI wants farmers to tell governments what to do by making their innovations available to other farmers by submitting them to the Positive List. (The Carbon Farming Initiative (CFI) includes an additionality test to ensure that carbon credits generated by CFI projects can genuinely offset the emissions produced. To pass the additionality test, a project must be on the Positive List.)

Carbon Farmers of Australia featured in Western Plains Central West Rural Report

Wednesday, May 16, 2012

Carbon farming at Goolma
Sally Bryant

As we prepare for the introduction of the carbon tax, and try to get our heads around what it all means, it's interesting to talk to some of the early adopters of carbon farming practices and ideology.

Michael and Louisa Kiely have run fine wool merinos at Goolma since the early 'nougthies'; they're working hard to replenish the carbon in their soils, and they're getting ready to trade in the carbon market.

They say that the process of designing a framework for trading carbon credits is a time consuming and complicated process.

Click here to listen to the article.

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Carbon Farmers of Australia featured in Western Plains Central West Rural Report

Wednesday, May 16, 2012

Click here to listen to the article.

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Carbon Farming Newsletter: April - May 2012

Friday, May 11, 2012

NEWS FROM THE HUB OF CARBON FARMING!

Your one stop shop to keep up to date and move forward in your carbon farming goals.

Regional Carbon Market Summit - Leveraging the Carbon Market for regional prosperity

Why is it that all things to do with The Clean Energy Policy, the Land Sector package and the Carbon Farming Initiative are all ‘announced’ in the cities, and discussed at city conferences which cost a fortune to attend? After all, only Landholders can earn carbon credits in the CFI!

This is just not a level playing field, so, we’ve decided to have a Carbon Summit in the Regions on July 25th and 26th!
We have invited the best knowledge brokers in the business to come to the Regions and help our accountants, solicitors, agribusiness managers, councils, NRM agencies and others to understand HOW to benefit from these new policies, and how to support farmers and landholders who are taking part.

There are Government grants, there are carbon credits to be earned and there are risks and potentials to manage. The inaugural Carbon Market Summit will outline all the issues and answer all questions. It will also hold more extensive training on day two, for those who want to understand what the NEXT STEPS are in getting moving.

For details, please go to www.regionalcarbonsummit.com.au. This calibre of presenters will not be seen again in the Regions for a very long time.

Breaking news! First round of biodiversity fund announced

Did you have a win? Click here for more details.

Carbon Farming Initiative News

CFI Tree Methodology Approved

So, there is now an approved methodology which has applicability over general farmers/Landholders. The method involves planting of native, bio-diverse trees under the stipulated conditions of the methodology. (The ‘methodology’ is the ‘recipe book’ which describes HOW you must go about things.) We are currently working out how to use their ‘tools’ and we’ll be calling for expressions of interest to hear about how it might work on farm in due course. Stay tuned!

To download the methodology and get used to the ‘Greek’ they are written in click here.

Do you have a new technology or process which has the potential to reduce nitrous oxide from soils, methane from cattle, or sequesters carbon in soil or trees?

If so, you need to apply to go onto the POSITIVE LIST.

The Positive List is for INNOVATORS. And we know there are lots of you! The CFI says that the activity that a Landholder does to earn carbon credits must be ADDITIONAL to what they are doing at the moment. You can apply to be considered additional to business as usual by filling out the Positive List form. A good example is that BIOCHAR is on the list. We are currently assisting some of our best innovators to get their products and processes on this list. Please contact me for assistance in this - even if you are not sure what the heck I’m talking about - it could be important to your business. IT’S A FREE SERVICE!

Click here for more information.

Offset methodologies under consideration

The below is an indication of what will soon happen – LOTS of ways to enter this carbon market. If you can’t see a ‘meth’ you like, wait a bit and one should appear!

Several carbon offset methodologies are under consideration by the Domestic Offsets Integrity Committee. They are native forest protection, reforestation and afforestation, destruction of methane from piggeries using engineered bio-digesters, management of camels, and three waste-related methodologies.

‘ACCU’ explained

How are you travelling on understanding the ‘language’ of this new market?

Well, over the next little while, I’ll be tackling a few explanations for you. While I hope you find them useful, it takes a full day’s training to really understand it to the point of being able to make decisions about your involvement. If you are interested in training, make an enquiry!

So, ACCU - or Australian Carbon Credit Unit - is your ‘currency’. Once you have undertaken a carbon project according to the rules and regulations of the Carbon Farming Initiative, you will apply to be granted a certain number of ACCU’s. These are financial instruments, so serious rules exist around who can and can’t advise you. Once you have ACCU’s, you will be able to sell carbon to polluters, decide when to sell and at what price you want to sell. Sounds great, but it's not that easy to 'earn' them.

The good news is that everything we are hearing at the moment indicates a large demand for them.

NEXT Newsletter - What is a methodology and why do I need one?

Government information

There is now much more comprehensive information available on the Government site as well. It's worth a look around.
They even have a carbon farming handbook now (ours is up to its 4th edition!).

In other news

Revised NCOS released - so what?

The NCOS (National Carbon Offset Standard) is the Government scheme which allows companies to go carbon neutral. That is to say, they must measure their footprint, reduce it and also purchase carbon credits for any remaining carbon footprint - thereby having a zero footprint.

Most of the companies will do this voluntarily, for business and personal reasons (see below). The good news for Landholders and Farmers is that they will now be able to buy ACCU’s (Australian Carbon Credit Units - see above) to offset their footprint.

This in effect increases potential demand for your carbon!

HERE IS AN EXAMPLE OF THE BUSINESS BENEFITS OF GOING CARBON NEUTRAL!
Republica Coffee is an Australian organic fair trade business - it is the first food company to be certified carbon neutral by government agency, Low Carbon Australia - these features have helped Republica to generate $4.5 million, win contracts with Jetstar and Virgin, and expand its product range from 1 to 7 with Coles AFR 100412.

More examples next newsletter!

Rise in N2O emissions due to fertiliser use

A new study has proved definitively that a dramatic rise in atmospheric nitrous oxide in the past 50 years is due to increased fertiliser use. The researchers hope the study will contribute to changes in fertiliser use and agricultural practices to mitigate the release of nitrous oxide into the atmosphere.

Lachlan soil carbon pilot on YouTube

NSW DPI research agronomist Warwick Badgery features in this YouTube clip about the soil carbon pilot project in the Lachlan catchment.

And lastly, some snippets

Tasmanian farmers' push for action on industrial hemp production has won support from all 3 parties in the state - the move is being driven by strong consumer demand for renewable and recyclable fibre products - industrial hemp is already cultivated in Canada (The Mercury 23/03/12).

In an attempt to keep costs down almost one-third of small business owners haven’t taken a holiday since they started business according to a new MYOB report StartUpSmart 170412. Sounds familiar to me!

Until next time… Go forth and increase carbon storage!

Any queries, you know where to find us! Email us on louisa@carbonfarmersofaustralia.com.au, contact us through the website or call on 02 6374 0329.

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