Future lies in harvesting sun, wind: AACC

Burdekin Grower
October, 2007 Page: 8

AS the federal election campaign officially gets under way, a new report released this week by the Agriculture Alliance on Climate Change shows that the future for rural Australia lies not just in traditional crops and stock, but in harvesting the sun and the wind and carbon farming. The AACC commissioned the CSIRO report which shows that farmers could be enjoying up to an extra $2.94 billion every year by getting involved in delivering Australia's clean energy economy.

The AACC asked the CSIRO to look at the opportunities of providing fuel, as well as more greenhouse friendly food and fibre and environmental services into the Australian and global economies. CSIRO identified a number of opportunities:

• Providing renewable energy infrastructure like wind and bioelectricity under policies such as a clean, renewable energy target of 25 per cent by 2020.
• Assisting the agricultural sector with finding and delivering greenhouse gas savings from its own activities by rewarding early action.
• Creating (accredited and verified) environmentally sound offsets in the rural sector as part of a national emissions trading scheme.
• Increasing active biodiversity conservation on private land from six to fourteen per cent across Australia.

CSIRO also found that by harvesting clean renewable energy and farming carbon, farmers could earn up to $1.3 billion a year including wind royalties of up to $263 million. The total potential annual revenue, including biodiversity stewardship payments is up to $2.94 billion. This report shows that although farmers and rural communities have been on the frontline of climate change impacts, the future of rural Australia lies in climate solutions like harvesting wind, solar and carbon farming.

However these rural based solutions and other mitigation actions won't happen without the right policies from Government to cut greenhouse pollution and drive the shift towards a clean energy future. AgForce chief executive officer Brett de Hayr said AgForce, as a member of the alliance, was keen to embrace the potential to harvest the sun and the wind, undertake carbon farming and provide biodiversity services in addition to traditional crop and stock production.

Mr de Hayr said the AACC commissioned CSIRO report showed farmers could enjoy up to an extra $2.88 billion annually by becoming part of the solution to Australia's climate change response in terms of biodiversity, emissions trading and renewable energy. "Australian farmers, particularly those in Queensland, are largely responsible for Australia's ability to meet its Kyoto emission targets already, and is the only sector to significantly reduce its emissions," Mr de Hayr said. He said agriculture needed to be part of the discussions to ensure the right policies are developed by Government to drive the shift towards a clean renewable energy future supplied largely by rural Australia.