Sheep emissions update webinar transcript
Hear from two experts on insights on recent greenhouse gas calculations and practical solutions to reduce emissions on sheep enterprises across Victoria.
Speakers:
- Sam Henty, Farm Business Economist
- Dr Ralph Behrendt, Livestock Emissions Specialist
Passcode: Sheep1
Transcript
Emma Smith: Hey, Sam. OK, we're just going to give everyone a couple of minutes to join today's webinar, so thank you everyone for coming along. While we just wait for everyone to log on, I'm just going to run through a bit of housekeeping. So welcome to today's webinar, which is a sheep emissions update. My name is Emma Smith and I'm a Senior Project Officer for Agriculture Emissions and Climate Action with Agriculture Victoria and I’ll be facilitating today's webinar. So a couple of housekeeping things for today. This webinar is being recorded and the recording will be made available afterwards. We have everyone muted today just to stop any background noise, so if you do have a question please pop it into the chatbox and we’ll leave some time at the end for questions. So finally, we have a quick survey at the end of the webinar and we’d greatly appreciate it if you could complete that when we wrap up this afternoon. So, before we commence today, I'd like to acknowledge the Traditional Owners of the lands and waters on which we are all meeting today and I pay my respects to elders past and present. I'm tuning in from Bendigo, which is the lands of the Dja Dja Wurrung people and I'd like to acknowledge the lands on which everyone is tuning in from today.
So, to kick things off, Agriculture Victoria has a number of programs underway at the moment that are helping producers make sense of carbon and emissions, and we'll hear about those 2 projects that have been working with livestock farm businesses across the state to calculate their emissions at the farm level. So first up today we're hearing from Sam Henty. He is a farm business economist with Agriculture Victoria who manages the Livestock Farm Monitor project, which has been running for 55 years. So more specifically, we'll be hearing from Sam on the Greenhouse Gas report that is a recent addition to that project and the results of the greenhouse gas calculations for participating farm businesses for the 2023-2024 financial year. After that, we'll then hear from Dr. Ralph Behrendt who is a senior specialist in climate change with Agriculture Victoria and has most recently been working on the On Farm Emissions Action Plan pilot with up to 250 farm businesses across Victoria to calculate their emissions and develop customised emissions reduction action plans for each of those businesses.
So I'd also like to take this opportunity to acknowledge Agricultura Victoria's Carbon Farming Outreach Program, which is another program helping producers understand both carbon and emissions and is also supporting today's webinar. So with housekeeping out of the way, I'm very pleased to introduce our first speaker today, Sam Henty. So, Sam, I'm going to stop sharing my screen and hand over to you.
Sam Henty: Yeah, Emma you’re going to need to give me access to share. I haven't, I can't share.
Emma Smith: OK, alright. Give me 2 seconds. I think you do have access here, it says Sam on my end. Maybe I could share your slides for you though.
Sam Henty: Yeah, no worries. Just the sharing is not turned on when I try and share
Emma Smith: OK, let me pull up your slide, Sam, and I'll have them up and you'll be able to flick through them if that's all right.
Sam Henty: Yeah, cool.
Emma Smith: Alright, give me 2 seconds. Alright, is that coming up, Sam?
Sam Henty: Yes, yeah.
Emma Smith: Beautiful, alright, let me try and get us in presenter mode. There we go, how's that?
Sam Henty: Great, thank you. So you'll flick through the slides?
Emma Smith: Yeah, you just let me know when you want me to swap slides, Sam, and I'll try my best to keep up.
Sam Henty: Cool, no worries, thank you. Thanks for having me. Yeah, today I'm going to talk about the Livestock Farm Monitor Project and how it aligns with some of the greenhouse gas work that the Department of Environment, Energy and Climate Action or Agriculture Victoria is doing with farmers. Specifically sheep and cattle farmers through the Livestock Farm Monitor project. So as Emma mentioned, the Livestock Farm Monitor Project has been going for more than 50 years and has existed as a benchmarking project which has collected farm business information to estimate farm, sheep and beef farm business profit and productivity, and more recently this information has been used to estimate farm emissions because all of that information that was being collected basically aligns with the information that's required to estimate emissions through the sheep and beef greenhouse accounting framework produced by the University of Melbourne, so the inputs were there and so including an emissions report for businesses who participate was no extra information required and the benefit of putting emissions information next to financial information and production information, it just improves the understanding of how the 3 interact because there is a big interaction between the 3 and so just having your emissions number doesn't give you the information required to make a decision that is going to be a whole business decision, so by decreasing emissions what effect does it have on your production and what effect will that have on your profitability. So including an emissions estimate next to those two things is what the purpose of including an emissions estimate in the Farm Monitor - that's what drove that part. And that information is really just as a, so it can't be used, this information is just an estimate. It's using this tool, which is just high level understanding of emissions type, source, and quantity from your business, or participating businesses, just to increase your understanding, or businesses' understanding, of emissions, because we're all starting from a pretty low point. This is all new information and how it's going to play out that is still unknown. But what we know is understanding where you are now will probably help you inform where you want to be in the future. And so, that's essentially what we're doing here. What I've also done is aggregated that information to produce some benchmarks across the state, and for each region for various emissions intensity numbers and other information around emissions in a similar way that we do for production and profitability for our other report. And that's what I'm going to report on today, just some trends that I guess we've found through that information to help, again, broader the understanding and refine our understanding around emissions when it comes to sheep businesses, so yeah. So, the first point is that, can you go to the next slide, please, Emma?
The report is out now, so everyone can have a look at this, it’s on the AgVic website, AgVic Farm Monitor website and you'll see most of what I'm going to present today is in there, and in addition to what I'll present, it has benchmarking tables, which you can see there. Can you flick to the next slide, please, Emma?
So, the first, this, you would have all seen the equation, and this infographic that's used to sort of highlight the type and source and quantity of emissions on farm, and so when we look at the median emissions from the whole data set, which is 140 farms across the state, the median emissions is about 2,500 tonnes but there was a big range there, and the range is, it ranges between, the middle 50% of that range is between 1,300 tonnes to 4,000 tonnes and most of that is coming, as you can see, from enteric methane. Can you flick to the next slide, please, Emma?
So, enteric methane, as I mentioned, was the dominant emission, so you can see methane as a total, made up 80% of emissions for all businesses that went, the median of all businesses was 80%. So, most of the emissions coming from a sheep farm, sheep and cattle farms is methane. The next biggest is nitrous oxide and then pre-farm or scope 3 emissions, which is the emissions that come with, the downstream emissions coming from purchasing feed or fertiliser or livestock. So methane is really the main driver of emissions on farm. Can you go to the next slide, please, Emma? We might skip through this, skip to the next slide, sorry.
So, stock numbers are a really good predictor of emissions on a livestock business. So what this graph here is showing is all the businesses in our survey, so the 140-odd businesses, and separating them out into the different types of business. So, sheep and beef specialists. So, a sheep specialist is getting most of their income from either wool or meat, beef is getting most of their income from beef, and then sheep and beef is a mixture of both. Stock and grain is a mixture of both of those. But essentially, when we're looking at Scope 1 and 2 emissions, which are on-farm emissions we can see there is a really good relationship between DSE, so total stock numbers, and total emissions, so the more mouths you have, the more emissions you are going to produce. So, big farms, farms with lots of animals are producing lots of emissions. And that's mostly because of that initial graph we saw, which is, most of the emissions are coming from enteric methane. So it's a really important graph in that, to understand changes in emissions, a likely change, year-on-year changes in total emissions is likely due to changes in stock numbers. So, increases in emissions will likely come from an increase in stock numbers. A decrease in emissions will likely come from a decrease in stock numbers. Until we have, something that will, so feed additives, which Ralph will talk to, around reducing that emission, enteric methane. This trend will really, this graph will highlight changes in total emissions, and we're talking about total emissions at the moment. Next slide, please.
We also looked at, sequestration on farm and tree sequestration, which is what the sheep and beef greenhouse accounting frameworks estimate. And so what we, when we separated the data set into the smallest 25% and the largest 25% and the 2 in the middle, what we found was that tree area, total tree area increased. So, larger farms had a larger total amount of tree area on that farm. But, next slide, please.
When we looked at that as a proportion of the total area, smaller farms actually had a large proportion of their tree, their total farm area allocated to trees. So, smaller farms had, more likely they have a higher proportion of trees on their farm than larger farms. Next slide, please.
Benchmark, the emissions intensity is a main measure of comparison of emissions because of the scale factor that sort of is highlighted in that graph with DSE. Comparing a 120,000 DSE farm to a 5,000 DSE farm is nonsensical, really, total number, because of the scale, they're 2 very different businesses. And so the way to, that we have, that we've created to compare is emissions intensity, which is a measure of efficiency, where you can look at the amount of emissions per kilogram of output. So it's not a perfect measure, because ultimately what we're looking at, and what is, so, total emissions, the thing that is being looked at from a Net zero point of view from a government or policy perspective, but understanding a, from a farm management point of view, how can you improve the efficiency of those emissions, which are a loss to your business, how can you improve that efficiency is what we're looking at with emissions intensity. So, here you can see the 23-24 median across beef, sheep and wool versus a four-year median, and you can see the 23- 24-year was about 10% lower than the 4-year median, and that was likely because, so it was more efficient, so we're producing less emissions per kilo of output, but that is likely due to looking at one year in isolation, and particularly the 23-24 year, was saw really low commodity prices as well as really dry conditions in the southwest. Which, have, where sheep dominate the enterprises in the data set, and so there was a higher proportion of sales, particularly sheep meat sales and so, that is likely skewing or bringing that number down. So it's really important to, one year in isolation, it needs to be really considered with caution, because of different decisions that are made in different years and so, really understanding your business, looking at a benchmark, a regional benchmark, or an average benchmark can offer some insights into trying to understand why your business is higher or lower, but the best comparison is your business against your business over time because the goals of your business and the limitations and strengths of your business are different to your neighbour's business, or a business that on the other side of the state. So understanding where you are now and where you want to go, and then tracking that is the most important part, and what the Farm Monitor can do and does do for the people who are participating. Next slide and last slide.
So, one of the things we can draw out is the relationship between productivity or efficiency and emissions intensity and this graph highlights the, on the vertical axis, we're looking at the sheep emissions intensity, so kilograms of CO2 per kilograms of liveweight sold, and on the bottom axis, the horizontal axis, we're looking at kilograms of liveweight sold per animal. And so, you can see that when you're increasing the kilograms of live weight sold per animal your emissions intensity decreases but when you decrease the amount sold per animal, your emissions intensity increases. And there's good reasons for that, and legitimate reasons for that in one year. So that could be a year of purchasing animals, or a year of selling more than usual, because of market or seasonal conditions. And that red line represents the median. And so, this relationship is essentially what is driving an increase or a decrease in emissions intensity. If anyone has any further information, or wants any further information around the process of this information, or is interested in being involved in the Livestock Farm Monitor. Livestock Farm Monitor, at the moment is, we're just about to start the 24-25 financial year. And so, if anyone wants to be involved, it's online. Yeah, we still have places available, and so either get in touch with me or Emma, and I'm happy to have a chat with you about the process, and what you get out of it. So that's it from me, Emma, and I'll pass over to Ralph.
Emma Smith: Beautiful. Thanks, Sam. That was a great wrap-up of the Livestock Farm Monitor project. Thank you very much. I might just take this opportunity to remind participants that if they would, like to ask a question of either Sam or Ralph, to just pop it in the chat, and we'll leave some time at the end to get to those questions. Now, I'll, yeah, take this opportunity to introduce our next guest speaker, and Ralph, just before I do, can I check how your sharing abilities are going there on your end?
Ralph Behrendt: Just give us a second.
Emma Smith: No worries.
Ralph Behrendt: How's that looking?
Emma Smith: That is looking good to me! Thanks, Ralph. So, I'll-
Ralph Behrendt: Awesome.
Emma Smith: I'll just take this opportunity to introduce you and give some context as to the next presentation. So yeah, introducing our second speaker for today is Dr. Ralph Behrendt, who is a Senior Specialist in Climate Change with Agriculture Victoria, based at the Hamilton Smart Farm. So, Ralph has over 30 years' experience in research, development, and extension in livestock farming systems managing reproductive performance of merino and maternal composite use, evaluation of pasture and forage systems, and measurement of feed efficiency and methane emissions in sheep. So, since 2022, Ralph's been a core member of the On Farm Emissions Action Plan Pilot Team, where he's been working with farmers across all industries, right across the state to estimate their greenhouse gas emissions and develop practical actions to reduce emissions and increase carbon sequestration. So, with that, Ralph, I'll throw over to you.
Ralph Behrendt: Thanks Emma, and thank you everyone for attending the meeting and joining us on the presentation. So, Sam's giving you a really good run into, sort of, emissions estimation in the Livestock Farm Monitor project, and we've used similar methods in the Pilot Program, so I'm just going to, and we've probably got a few people that have been involved in the Pilot on the call, so we'll just recap briefly on what the Pilot Program was, what it did, I'll talk a little bit about the process of the sort of carbon accounting and the data that we used for the emissions assessment, and that'll cover a little bit of what Sam talked about as well, and then we'll talk about a typical sort of emissions profile for the sheep enterprise, and then we'll spend most of the slides looking at, sort of, the types of actions that sheep farmers can do, and also some of the actions that farmers have done in the Pilot Program, and then we'll just finish off with a little bit about how you might go about developing your own action plan, to reduce emissions and increase sequestration.
So, the Pilot Program-
Emma Smith: Ralph, could I just pull you up there for 2 seconds? We can see you in presenter mode with the notes on the next slide coming through. Is it possible to, change the view on your end?
Ralph Behrendt: Okay. I thought I had that selected. We'll try this.
Emma Smith: Beautiful, that looks great. Thanks, Ralph.
Ralph Behrendt: Apologies, everyone, you think you're picking the right screen and you didn't. Anyway, so, the Pilot Programs run from 21 to 25. We've just recently completed the end of the project, and it was primarily about trying to work with farmers to establish what they could do at a farm level to reduce emissions and give them an idea of what their number was, talk to them about their number, and then look at practices that could reduce emissions on farm. It involved 230 farm visits, emissions profiles, customised action plans, and we had a 20, sort of 55 sheep businesses in the mix, but a lot of farms were also mixed enterprises, so we had, sort of, mixed beef-sheep farms, mixed grain farms and a few other sort of mixes as well, where it's quite, so quite a bit of diversity. We covered the full state and all the CMAs with different enterprises as well as the sheep industry as well, and you can get a sense of the distribution of the sheep enterprises with the map on the left of your screen.
So, the Pilot was delivered by an Expression of Interest process, people got involved in the program, we sent them a data request sheet, which sort of set out what data was needed. We used that to create an emissions estimate and develop some emissions profiles, and then we discuss those estimates on farm, and collected a whole lot of more detail about their farm business and what they were doing, and then prepared a customised action plan, and also refined their emissions estimate based on the on-farm information and then that was provided back to applicants, to participants in the program, and they were then able to, if they chose to, apply for a grant and undertake a sort of action plan grant project. So, this was repeated 230 times, 55 sheep farmers in the mix, and we're going to talk a little bit more about the specific sheep side of the emissions estimation process. And the whole process was really framed around knowing your number, understanding your number, and then acting on your number.
So, we used the sort of national inventory-based methods through the greenhouse accounting frameworks to calculate out the Scope 1 and 2 emissions for the farm business, which covers methane, nitrous oxide and carbon dioxide arising from activities within the business, so that's your Scope 1, and then we also looked at the Scope 2, which is your electricity, that's servicing the business, and then the sequestration that's involved in trees, and in some cases, soils as well, if the information was available. We use that information to create a sort of net farm emissions footprint, and then take into consideration also Scope 3, which is the embedded upstream emissions in the inputs that you're purchasing onto the farm to conduct the business. So, as I mentioned we used the sheep and beef greenhouse gas accounting framework, available from that website there. And, the thing to recognise is it is an estimation using information that the farm gathers to estimate the levels of emissions that are being produced by the farm. And there are limitations to the tool, but they're always improving, and there's regular updates, so it's worthwhile, downloading the most recent tool if you're going to be doing your own emissions assessment. It does mean that there is a need for good record keeping, and that's one thing that continued to come up through all our farm visits, is that sometimes the data was not available and we just had to make estimates along the way of what was likely to be happening, and people need to go back and try and find that data. Or that there was a need to get more robust data over time for the farm business. And just a reminder that what the carbon accounting tool's trying to do is it's trying to work out what the emissions are that are causing global warming, and what the, there is some estimate of what's coming in, back in, and being permanently sequestered in terms of carbon sequestration using trees. But it's not necessarily doing all the calculations for every piece of carbon that's actually cycling in an annual sense within the farm system and there's a lot of complexity that's in a biological farm system, that doesn't necessarily get counted for in the tool directly.
So, what's the sort of information you might need? So, probably the first thing that we used to start off with is certainly discussing around the scope of operations, the farm, the size of the farm, the boundaries, the number of farms that would be in the estimate, any other blocks that contribute to the enterprise. So this really puts, sets out the framework and the boundary around which you make the emissions estimate for the farm, and what data you need to collect. You know, the types of data that contribute to the emissions assessment, things like the production data, so sales of sheep and lamb, wool, any crops for mixed farms, and then for sheep enterprises, it's the inventory numbers for each livestock class that are critical. So, knowing exactly what numbers are on farm. So, what Sam pointed out, the number of animals on the farm driving methane emissions, that's a very integral part of the calculation. So, the time of lambing, the marking rate, and then the live weight and live weight gain of those animals that you have on farm. So, having actual information there is useful, but you can also estimate it with some guidance. Supplementary feeding information, so in terms of hay and grain, your fertiliser and your chemical inputs to the farm. Energy usage in terms of electricity, your fuel use, in terms of petrol and diesel use. Trees, in terms of species type, hectares and age are used to calculate the level of sequestration that occurs in trees. And then, if you do have baseline soil data, you can do some assessment of what carbon sequestration might be occurring over time, and that can be taken outside the tool to look at the level of inset you might have in that sort of area. So the key sources for these sorts of information is around tax and livestock records, your sale and purchase receipts, any farm software, your agronomist can be really helpful, and your spray records that you'd be collecting anyway when you're doing those sorts of operations on farm. So, you can use the calculator, collect the data, and then compare them to the benchmarks that Sam's talked about in his presentation.
So, what's an emissions profile look like? This one's very similar to the profile that Sam showed you. So this one's for our Pilot participants in round 3 of the sheep, which was our dedicated sheep round, so these were primarily sheep-based businesses that applied to the Pilot. And you can see from that that, you know, 80% of the methane emissions footprint was from methane, 6% around nitrous oxide from, primarily from fertilizer and urine and dung, and leaching and runoff components, and then 4% through CO2 emissions from electricity use, lime, urea, and fuel use, fossil fuel use. So, probably worth pointing out that that figure of 4% is slightly higher than, you know, typically, but there was a lot of lime used, in those years, and about 2% of that, 4%, was, was actually from lime-based emissions, where people were spreading lime on farms in the cohort. Emissions were reduced by about 10% to provide the final, sort of, net farm annual emissions footprint of 2,094 tonnes of CO2. So, point here is we didn't actually go out on farm and measure soil carbon sequestration, but if that data was there, we took that into consideration for different participants, but there wasn't any data used for that in his round 3 of the Pilot. and we don't have it incorporated in this particular calculation of the data. I will, so, just, reflecting on the emissions intensity, it was 8.3 for excluding sequestration, so kilograms of CO2 per kilogram of live weight and, 33.2 kilograms of CO2 per kilogram of greasy wool, so that's excluding sequestration, and these figures are pretty much in the quartile ranges that you will find in Sam's Livestock Farm Monitor report for, and very similar to those sorts of figures. I would point out that this is an average for this round, and that those figures are actually skewed upwards a bit by some flocks that were nudie sheep, or transitioning flocks where wool production was decreasing and they were changing flocks over, so there was a higher footprint with some increased sheep purchases, but also lower wool production. Meaning that there was higher emissions intensity for wool, as well as lamb.
So, you've got that data, you know your number, it's then about looking at, well, what can you do on farm to reduce emissions? And this is really just a summary slide. The sorts of things that people can consider in the sheep enterprises, and sheep's side of the business to reduce both, like, enteric methane, nitrous oxide and CO2 emissions. And, we'll go through a few of these actions in more detail in the following slides, so I won't spend long time here but it's worthwhile, sort of, looking at your profile, and then sort of saying, well which of the areas that are going to contribute most? And recognizing that whilst you can make some action changes in the sort of nitrous oxide and electricity area, that those contribution to emissions reduction will be less than what you might be able to achieve in the methane area, but, having said that, the options to meaningfully reduce a lot of methane would rely heavily on future research around feed additives to reduce the actual enteric methane emissions which is a large component of the profile.
Alright, so, as I mentioned, the Pilot was very much about people doing things on farm to try and reduce emissions and so, the grant funding that was being used was about contributing to actions that they could do on farm that would then assist in reducing emissions. So, the overall aim is sort of around livestock improvement for a number of farmers was certainly improving that sort of measure to manage approach, and continuing to implement best practice. So, getting rid of the poor performers, so pregnancy scanning, getting rid of dry sheep, wet drying ewes and their udder assessment, measuring the growth of animals and getting rid of any tail-end animals as soon as possible off the farm, so that they're not contributing to the footprint. Improving the reproductive efficiency, so one aspect of the, sort of, live weights sold per DSC that Sam was talking about is reproductive efficiency, so producing more lambs per ewe, can contribute to that production efficiency, so optimising condition score on live weight, pregnancy scanning, marking percentages and lamb survival. And likewise, really focusing in on maiden ewes, which are often, the area that people don't have it necessarily up to scratch. So, there are ways of, you know, making sure that the live-weighted joining is high, making sure they're gaining weight through joining and then optimising the number of ewes that are pregnant there, and then marking rates and survival, at lamb, the lamb survival at lambing through provision of shelter and feed is important. So, weaner management, avoiding those weaning checks and reducing the time to turn off, and increasing growth rate it's about limiting their time on the farm and reducing methane emissions that way. And then finally, an area that they worked on was sort of genetic improvement, so things that drive that efficiency production on farm through increased live weight growth, increased fleece weight, where possible, food efficiency, and there is research happening in the methane emissions space that sort of suggests that there'll be a, sort of 1% cumulative potential for reduction of methane over time, so being able to reduce methane genetically is something that will come with further research and the availability of breeding values in that space. So, farmers, and quite a few in the Pilot all opted for things, or tended to opt for things like sheep handlers and auto drafters with scales and EODs so they could track animal performance and make those decisions about which animals needed to stay or go. Some farmers have purchased an OptiWeigh for sheep, which is a way of in-paddock weighing and looking at tracking animal live weight over time without necessarily yarding sheep and that's an option for certainly looking at lamb growth and making changes to nutrition over time. Some farmers have implemented some genomic testing to select size and use, and increase their rates of genetic gain, which drives that sort of efficiency. And then, there was an example of some farmers looking at performance recording software to collate that data.
So, another area to sort of consider in the emissions reduction space was certainly around what are the options that people can put in place to improve the feeding and nutrition of sheep at key times of the year and stock containment, and in some respects, a reflection also of the seasons that we've seen during the last couple of years was a really popular action and the reasons for this is, like, it's, you know, potential to be there for preserving ground cover, your perennial pasture persistence is how you can manage drought, but it's also an option for strategic finishing of lambs, for feeding of joining ewes, for autumn saving of pastures, for ewes that are pregnant and needing to get a threshold amount of feed on offer, so that ewes can lamb on to, down to sufficient feed, and then holding sheep in livestock emergencies is another angle that stock containment areas can provide. So, whilst a lot of people sort of say, well, this is known technology, and there's many people that have done stock containment areas, not everyone has this, and certainly a number of farmers were interested in building purpose-built stock containment areas, putting in place the feeding, the water troughs, the fencing and the shelter to do that. The other benefit of these areas is that they're probably the first cab off the rank when we get good, viable feed additives that you're going to be able to do something in feeding the ration in these areas and applying an additive when it's worthwhile. So even if you’re then retaining the lambs, for instance, to finish them, or ewes for a certain period of time, then that can contribute a certain reduction in enteric methane emissions by feeding additives during that feeding period. So, other types of projects that were undertaken there was sort of the installation of lick feeders and creep feeders, automated grain feeders, and in a couple of cases, sort of ration mixing and batching facilities for the preparation of diets.
So, the other area that you can look at is sort of the pasture side of things. Certainly written into the action plan with things around species composition, newer varieties, and certainly low methane potential pastures. So, pastures like chicory and plantain that have been shown to have some impacts on methane and other species as well. And then also, but, you know, there are options to look at increasing the digestibility in crude protein of pastures, particularly in summer and autumn and that allows you to offset some of the supplement feeding during that time. Rotational grazing management through paddock subdivision was in this area of action as well. And then, you know, certainly things around fertiliser efficiency, so soil testing for nutrients, doing the 4Rs - right time, right place, application and product of fertiliser use. And then applying variable rate technologies and precision application. And there's certainly a lot of recommendations around making sure that your legume content is up to the levels needed to support nitrogen fixation, in pastures, and also as part of crop rotations for, during the legume phase. So, the sorts of projects that were undertaken, as mentioned, were that improve, you know, subdivision for improved grazing management and utilization, sort of sowing lucerne for summer or autumn feed, and in particular for feeding joining ewes. Paddock ramifications with improved species, some irrigation improvements, and an interesting one there for a drier climate was around the planting of salt bush as a fodder reserve, for, as a drought reserve for fodder, and then also for carbon sequestration in that lot.
So, some more for soil-focused actions. So, one of the things, with the Pilot was that the amount of information on soil organic carbon wasn't always there available on farms and so, understanding, sort of, that nutrient level at, 0 to 10 centimetres and across both, you know, farm in terms of paddocks, land classes, and different soil types is really important for sort of understanding where the farm is at with soil organic carbon. And knowing the paddock history, and particularly in terms of cultivation, gives an idea of where the potential is for soil organic carbon on a farm and sort of trying to identify those low soil organic carbon paddocks for improvement. And then there certainly was a fair bit of discussion about the opportunities for baselining soil organic carbon, and looking at further measurements down the track to look at sequestration as well. So the sorts of projects that people undertook, in particular, were around soil testing for nutrients and soil mapping. And then applying different sort of variable rate technologies for fertiliser application in lime, and that's ranged from sort of simple-type methods, which were just, like paddock level testing, and then applying, treating each paddock differently, to more complex and precise methods, such as the soil mapping you can see in the image above on the left. And then, baselining soil carbon measurements was also undertaken by a number of farmers, and then there was some drainage works to reduce waterlogging undertaken by some farmers as well.
So, the other popular area for the grants was obviously around doing things in the space of carbon sequestration around trees, and also around water management. So many, many of the farms in the Pilot process had less than 5-10% of tree cover and so that meant there was still plenty of option to increase those areas. And because a lot of the trees that were on people's farms were aged, and sequestration plateaus over time, it was important to start new plantings or continue for the plantings as part of the carbon sequestration in trees. So, it provides a really important inset, as I mentioned before, it was providing about a 10% reduction in emissions on an annualised basis across the footprint. And then, when these animals are, sorry, when these trees are at a younger age they can sequester more carbon as they're growing, and so having a staged approach to tree plantations can help with the keeping carbon sequestration up over a longer time. So it's important carbon stock to manage, and it's important to think about whether it's going to be primarily used for shade shelter, or where there's options for farm forestry. And another aspect that was strongly discussed in the Pilot process was around, sort of, preserving remnant vegetation, about its protection, about its biodiversity value, and retaining older trees, and you know, options to protect those trees as well. So, the types of projects were undertaken with all sorts of tree planting projects in different shelter belt sizes. There was some projects looking at natural capital assessment, and specifically around their trees and the remnant vegetation they had on farm. And then, there's others that were around fencing and revegetation, around dams and wetlands and waterways. So, and then associated with that fencing around dams or water sources was certainly a consideration around how you then manage livestock access and livestock water, and thinking about, non-fossil fuel-based ways of making sure that those livestock got the water that they needed. So, solar was one way of looking at that.
And that comes into our next one around energy use. And, probably worth pointing out here that whilst there was a number of actions in this space, that energy use typically is only about 1-2% of emissions, so that, the emissions from fuel use on farms, through tractors, vehicles, pumps, and augers, or electricity use, through the same sort of, through fencing, pumps, augers, offices and sheds is actually a very small component of the overall footprint, but it's still something that can be addressed now, and it's an action that can lower emissions. If farms had irrigation, and were doing that, then irrigation can substantially increase the emissions through electricity use or fuel use, and looking at options for renewables in that case can be worthwhile. So, primarily here, it's about conducting an energy audit to make sure you know how much, what the rate of return on different options are and then, for the equipment that you do use that does use fossil fuels, making sure it's regularly maintained, you're using it efficiently in terms of the tractor use, aand then in the future, consider hybrids and EVs if the technology can make, become viable, for your use. So, the types of projects that people undertook were primarily about solar pumping of water, and transfer, and for irrigation. There was a few projects around variable speed drives and increasing the efficiency of the pumps that they had in place, and solar for electric fencing as well.
So, the final one I'll talk about in terms of actions that were happening on farm, these weren't specific actions that farmers addressed necessarily with upstream emissions, so Scope 3 upstream emissions are the embedded emissions and inputs purchased for the farm and they include things like hay, grain, fertilisers, lime, pesticides, herbicides, livestock purchases, any electricity and fuel. And it can be larger for some businesses, and during some seasons. So, you know, typically during drought, you're going to have to buy in more hay and grain, and there might be other aspects of expenses that you increase or decrease depending on the season. So, but the really good thing is, for those that really like to keep their wallet planted firmly in their back pocket, this one's about keeping Scope 3 down and being efficient and frugal, and really reducing the number of emissions that are bought onto the farm in the embedded products that come on to do the business. So, the other side of that is you can always ask your suppliers about what their number is and seek products that have lower embedded emissions. And as the whole economy trends towards producing products with lower emissions, it'll become increasingly easier and, to source products with lower emissions, as people start to look at this process and reduce their own emissions in their production processes. So, the types of actions were sort of more indirect here, but happened in the action plan Pilot was sort of that increasing homegrown feed, so the example of sowing down lucerne for summer and autumn feed can reduce the need for supplement and purchases. In terms of fertiliser efficiency, conducting soil tests across the farm, treating paddocks individually meant the amount of fertiliser required was reduced, so that's a Scope 3 reducing action as well. And I've thrown in here an example that wasn't necessarily in the, an action that was done in the sheep business sheep round, but it was done in dairy, was where people were doing composting on farm and bringing some inputs on farm to essentially do a fertiliser replacement that allowed them to reduce their other nutrients and their synthetic fertiliser being purchased. Now that can be viable and that recycling of materials from trees that are growing on farm and the wood chippings that you can see here can contribute to composting, but composting can also release emissions, so it's not a, necessarily all or nothing type replacement, as with all things in a biological system, you can make changes in one place and cause effects in other areas. So the balance here would be in relation to, you know, how much emissions are being created, and also what sorts of products are being brought on to farm and what sorts of emissions they are then producing in the composting process to replace the, sort of, synthetic fertilizers with organic amendments.
So, that's been a quick summary of all the actions that people have taken in the Pilot. If you were to go, you know, interested in making, doing the same sort of approach, then one of the things that you can do is sort of look at that range of actions, and think about where you sit on a scale of - you know, could be improved through to efficient best practice, and looking at the options there of how you, where you're currently sitting at and what options might be viable for you to do on your farm. So, emissions really, sort of, can be considered that loss leakage from the production system, so It's really an opportunity, sort of, to increase your production efficiency, or your sequestration, or is it an opportunity to reduce costs. And the sort of pathway that we've talked about in the Pilot is sort of around improving emissions intensity, reducing absolute emissions, insetting and offsetting the emissions where possible. and then looking after your existing carbon stocks as well.
So, and this is the last slide, so just developing your own action plan after you've had that consideration of what some of the options are, is also think about what your goals, your purpose, and your objective around emissions reduction are. And then having identified those areas of improvement, sort of look at what the key actions might be, and how they fit in the whole farm plan. It was, you know, as part of the sort of farm visits, it was always interesting to see how many, how often, you know, one of the takeaways was actually, I might need to revisit the whole farm plan, look at where my trees were planted, look where all the water is going, look at what the paddocks are doing across the farm. So, thinking about the whole business and the whole farm plan to look at what opportunities there were for emissions reduction as part of the business. So, breaking it down into follow-up and smaller steps, and then assessing, sort of, the high, medium, and low priorities, short and long-term timeframes, level of investment required, and don't forget other things, which you probably wouldn't, but here for completeness - complexity of the task or the management involved, and the amount of labour that's involved in some things and any potential other risks, but also don't discount a lot of the co-benefits that occur, certainly through tree planting on, as part of doing these reduction measures. And so, probably just to finish off, well, you know, key takeaway, if you can, from today is really, sort of, good business management is really good emissions management as well. So, continue to do those activities that really support your efficiency and your co-benefits in terms of emissions reduction, and measure the change in your emissions profile over time. So, don't get too hung up on how your number necessarily compares to everyone else. It's good to have an idea of where you sit and how you're going, but it's really about comparing yourself over time to yourself, and seeing what changes you can make in emissions over time. And then finally, don't forget about the future, sort of that climate adaptation planning, and don't we have a reminder right now is about looking at what the future risks are, and how that will impact your business and your emissions down the track and what you might need to do to increase the resilience of your farm. And I'll leave it there, thanks. Open it up for questions.
Emma Smith: Beautiful. Thanks very much, Ralph. That was really comprehensive. And thank you to everyone that's shooting through some questions into the Q&A. We've only got about 5 minutes left, so I've had to sort of pick some of the bigger questions, and for any unanswered questions, we can get back to you when the recording is made available a little later on once we've got that from Zoom. So, one question, it's sort of a double-bowed question here, but I'd be interested to hear from Ralph and Sam, their thoughts on this. So, we have a question saying, what do you think is the highest motivating factor for farmers to reduce emissions? Do you think that MLA's decision to drop the carbon neutral by 2030 target will reduce the number of Victorian farmers trying to reduce emissions? I might throw to Ralph first, and then to Sam for this one.
Ralph Behrendt: Yeah, interesting. I think it might reduce the worry of people around emissions and having a target that might not have been as achievable is what was originally thought that when they set out. I think most farmers are really keen on improving their production efficiency and not having waste, so, you know, that answer of, you know, being able to reduce the inefficiencies in the system by taking out excess imports, making sure the system is running is completed as well as possible to produce the product that you're doing at the same time as caring for the environment, I think is still very strongly an aim for farmers. So, I'm not sure that they'll take the accelerator off those aspects, because it's still good for the farm business. So, yeah, my feeling is farmers will still find this as a high priority and certainly, when we've gone out and talked to farmers across the, you know, there was a lot of shared commonality around wanting to keep the farm for next generation, making sure business was sustainable and making sure that they could make a living now, too, out of what they were doing. So it's about those compromises. And yeah, sure, that may mean that emissions is not necessarily going to nosedive in the next, you know, 10 years, even 20 years. It's going to be a long-term process that people are going to need to do over time, but there'll be some benefits along the way from addressing it as well.
Emma Smith: Yeah, thanks, Ralph. Sam, did you have any additional thoughts to add to that?
Sam Henty: Nah, nothing more from me.
Emma Smith: Cool. One question I will ask of you, Sam, that's come through is - How long does it take to get farm data together for the Livestock Farm Monitor project if people wanted to get involved in that?
Sam Henty: Yeah, good question. It's a question that is probably the most common question and there's no real easy answer, because it really depends, which is a cop-out answer, but it depends on how, w here your records are at the moment. But, yeah, you can sort of bank on between a couple of hours to a day's worth of work. So, yeah, that's probably the best bet but all the information that we need is all the information that you would have. It's all standard farm information that you would be already reporting in some way anyway to your accountant or on your Xero, or on Excel or in shoeboxes, so it's just about getting that information into the format that we need, and we can help with that.
Emma Smith: Great. Thank you, Sam, that's great. I have posted quite a few links in the chat, so we've got some links to both projects that Ralph and Sam have touched on today, as well as some case studies from the On Farm Emissions Action Plan pilot, if people wanted to see some other examples of actions on the ground. and I've just posted also a link to some upcoming CFOP events, across Victoria as well. I just want to take this opportunity to thank both Ralph and Sam for their presentations today, and for everyone that's joined us and asked a question. I will just remind everyone that there's a quick survey when you close this, it should pop up in your browser, and we'd really appreciate your assistance completing that for our feedback and evaluation purposes. And I think we'll have to leave it there, but thank you very much and we’ll catch you all next time.