Emissions in Agriculture Community of Practice

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Okay, hello everyone and welcome to today's webinar to hear an update on the on-farm emissions action plan pilot.

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My name is Heather Field and I'm a climate change service development officer with Agriculture Victoria.

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And we'll be facilitating today's webinar. Along with Graham Anderson Before our presenters begin, just a few housekeeping items. This webinar is being recorded and will be made available after today.

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We have you all muted just to stop background noise. So if you do have a question, please use the chat function which is currently explained on your screen.

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And we'll make some time at the end of the presentation for questions.

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There will be a short survey following the webinar. And it will take about a minute to complete and we greatly appreciate your assistance in completing that.

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Before we commence, I'd just like to acknowledge the traditional owners of the lands and water on which we're all meeting and I pay my respects to elders past prison and emerging. And I'm tuning in from Ballarat, which is the lands of the Watarung people and I'd like to acknowledge all the lands on which everyone is tuning in from today.

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So today we have the opportunity to hear from the Agriculture Victoria On-Farm Emissions Action Plan Pilot Team.

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Who've been working with 250 farm businesses across Victoria to estimate their on-farm emissions profile.

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And identify potential actions to manage and reduce their emissions. So we're pleased also to have Jonathan Jenkins to join us, one of the participants of the pilot to share his experience with the pilot program and how he's used his action plan and knowledge to make changes on farm.

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So I'm pleased to welcome our presenters today, Graham Anderson, Alison Calley.

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Ralph Brent and Jonathan Jenkin. And Graham, who most of you would be familiar with, is going to kick us off first.

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And Graham Anderson is an experienced science communicator and extension leader within Victoria's agriculture sector.

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He leads a small team who deliver climate risk services such as the break, soil moisture monitoring and on-farm emissions pilot.

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And he has 36 years background in science, agriculture. And farm planning and practice change in adoption.

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So welcome, Graham, and I'll hand over to you to kick us off for this exciting update.

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Ever that coming through all good. And welcome, everyone. I'm joining from Woodurong country in Geelong. Pay respect to elders past and present too. And a huge welcome to everyone and especially big thank you to the farmers who have been working with us on the on farm

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Emissions action planning pilot The on-farm emissions pilot, it's 100% Victorian government investment that was part of the agricultural emissions sector pledge in 2021. And today we're going to hear all about what's been delivered with an on-farm pilot.

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So I guess for some context, as farmers tell us for agriculture to reduce emissions over the coming decades.

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It all has to be possible to achieve on a farm. So this pilot Really valuable reality check of what's possible now.

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And we offer a really huge thanks to the 250 farmers who participated and gave generously of their time and knowledge to help make sense of this pretty challenging topic. And we know that the farmers selected or actively involved in their own farm communities and industry networks so that

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What they're learning from their own farm emissions action plan experience. They're really well placed to share with others and help drive and shape what innovations we'll be needing in the decade ahead.

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So thanks heaps. Also, I want to just point out our AGVIC team. A big thanks there to the pilot team and Alison, just noting there in the photo there.

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Alison Kelly and uh and ralph Barron And Emma Smith is part of the pilot team and also Gemma Pearl, who was with us and not in the photo there, but James Noodles done some great work with some farmers on the case studies.

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But that was really the core pilot team. And this photo sort of shows an example of the many industry partners we're working with. And here's a photo with University of Melbourne experts, Richard Eckhart and Maria Lopez Peralta, who were the gurus with many of the carbon tools. So we have plenty of sessions and catch-ups on comparing notes around

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Carbon accounting. So thanks for all those partners that have been part of this along the way. There's also been great work by a wider team of staff across AGVIC and also the service providers who are involved in doing some of the farm action plans.

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And of course, a big thanks to our AgVic climate policy team colleagues who are currently still working with farmers, helping them turn their action into grants. So there's quite a lot of people in around there.

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I guess today is really a snapshot of the overall pilot and action plans. But if you scratch the surface.

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Just a little bit, there is so, so much more that can be shared And I guess the team is keen to to offer that. So if you or your organisation are interested in digging deeper.

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After today, please get in touch because I'm really hoping to in the coming months share more insights with industry partners on what's practical and what's needed at the farm level.

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And also for all of our participating pilot farmers. There's more sessions that are coming where you can join up with other farmers from your industry and compare notes the pilot experience and what you've all learned and where to next. So please stay tuned for all of that.

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Anyway, to tell us all about it, I'd like to introduce farm emissions specialist Alison Kelly.

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So we're really pleased as a part of the Alison came and joined us to to set up and run the emissions pilot. So Alison's been working in the agriculture research and development space for over 20 years.

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And having worked on emissions and environmental projects with Horticulture Australia, Dairy Australia, the University of Melbourne.

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As an independent consultant and as an independent consultant now with Agriculture Victoria so thanks uh Thanks for coming to help shape up and deliver the whole pilot, Alison, and to tell us all about it, I'm going to hand over to you.

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Thanks, Graham. And I guess I really appreciate that you've acknowledged many people that have had a hand in putting these slides together and getting it to this point because we do have quite a bit to share today. But as Graham said, more than happy to to continue that conversation beyond this webinar today. But just to kick into the pilot itself.

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As Graham said, it is funded by the Victorian Government as part of the Agriculture Sector Pledge.

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With the aim of working with 250 Victorian farmers. Focusing in on making sense of emissions at the farm scale.

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The opportunity of this project really and the value add is that we've been working with participants one-to-one to develop them a tailored emissions action plan and provide them with the option to take up a grant post that process.

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As part of that, we've also been working with staff, as Graham mentioned, as well as external service providers and training them in delivering these sorts of advice to farms as well.

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As part of the project, it really kicked off the first point was working with existing resources, but tailoring them and developing new templates, tools and guides that will support us in this journey.

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And we've also been working with the community of practice to share lessons as we've been delivering on the project.

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But also for them to work 2A in helping us to identify the participants that we've been working with.

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And I've just highlighted there the breakdown of those farms that we've been working with, the 254 that were selected to be part of this pilot and you'll see You know, it's across numerous Victorian regions. A lot of the industries that are important to this sector, to this sector and state.

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And I'll be going into a little bit more detail with each of the findings that we've been finding across the life of this project.

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I guess the key point though is that this project was kicked off in 2022 and back then the context there and the driver really was that there was a gap in the offering of this farm scale advice on emissions.

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This was a time when emissions calculators existed, but any uptake was voluntary and therefore was probably slightly ad hoc.

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The state government then identified the opportunity for a pilot to deep dive into this topic at the state level.

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And ultimately, really, though, what the pilot is seeking is to support practice change.

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Both within participants of the pilot, those 250 participants we mentioned, but also wider out to industries and stakeholder lists.

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So the change we wanted to see was not just about practice change on the farm, but educational and confidence levels. So we wanted to see that increase in knowledge and confidence in talking about emissions, but also being able to identify those actions that might be relevant to individual farms.

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As well as providing information that identifies a pathway forward for industries in this space.

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So we had a number of different audiences that we were tailoring our messaging for, including policymakers, both internally and externally that we've been working with.

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As well as farmers, as I've identified both from within the pilot participants as well as externally.

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And then service providers that we've been working with, either through contractual arrangements to help us deliver alongside these action plans or that wider community of practice.

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And so our approach, this key gap that we wanted to address was really about making sense at the farm scale.

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And so, as I mentioned, calculators, carbon neutral training programs, industry R&D and other elements of this topic were already in place.

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The information was there and leading farmers were already implementing action. But the connection of all of these activities into a simple, usable farm level format was what was needed.

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And the questions that are on this slide here really talk to that. So we were hearing already before we even kicked off the project of still feeling that that confusion and loss of where to start for some industries.

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Some were further down that space and were after more tailored information or looking at carbon farming.

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And those that we're really wanting to understand that through their realistic goals that could be achieved on their farm in the short, medium and longer term.

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So we've tagged that around the topic around both knowing your number, understanding your number.

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And acting on your number and acknowledging that farmers were at different stages of this process and were needing advice across all of these three areas to be able to feel confident.

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In the topic. So the design of this project, it itself actually includes many, many engagements across the three years from an expression of interest process where we actually work with rounds that are targeted at different industry groups.

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Through the one-on-one advice where we actually collect data, emissions assessment and develop action plans all the way through to the grant process, which was grants for participants in $16,000 matched one-to-one offering in an action plan grant.

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As well as a bigger, more innovative fund that was available as well for implementing significant emissions reduction opportunities.

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That design process and how it then has played out is probably slightly differed as with any project. There's always elements that we have to evolve as we're actually delivering the project.

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And so I'll just really briefly touch on the actual touch points that we've identified within that design phase.

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So with that expression of interest process, it was targeted. It was a key element of our project to engage farmers that wanted to work two-way with us, that were really interested in learning more in the topic and helping us to provide that deep dive. Those were selected, the 254 were selected from a competitive process through industry-focused combined rounds

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And then what we actually did once we actually selected those participants was to seek information from them.

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Each farmer was asked to submit farm level data using our unique data request form.

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Which were then used by the team to generate their emissions assessment.

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We didn't want to duplicate effort here in using developing up any new calculators. We utilized industry agreed calculators like the University of Melbourne Greenhouse Gas Accounting Framework and the Australian Dairy Carbon Calculator.

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To conduct and provide emissions assessments based on the data that we were provided.

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We then analyze the results from those and were able to actually present those back in a format. So we developed worksheets that were possible for us to take out on farm when we went out to these farm visits.

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Which was actually part of this process of the two-way conversation coming along with their emissions number and working through with them what was possible.

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And from that, we actually then customized an action plan for each of the participants.

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That action plan was the trigger for them to actually be able to then participate in the action plan grants that are part of the project.

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And I guess the key point here is that as part of this, we've now been able to deliver action plans to 229 farmers.

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So that process we've outlined is multiple touch points repeated 229 times.

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With staff members who we worked with and external providers, there were 38 wider team members that we worked with and trained in the delivery of this as part of the process.

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And noting that the process for applying for grants is still ongoing at this point in time.

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As part of the project, we also collected data from participants at key points of the process to understand their needs, their sentiment and their confidence in this space.

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And this slide outlines some of the insights drawn from the pre-visit survey responses, of which we've got 215 from across all of those rounds.

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And you'll note here the emotive language that comes through from this snapshot.

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We've got those terms like overwhelmed, feeling judged, feeling unequipped to be able to deal with this.

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And what we were hearing from participants is that part of the reason for participating in this project was that they are seeking advice, being able to cut through that noise.

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Being able to provide practical options and seeking knowledge that they can then implement on farm And there was also a desire to make sure that they were working with experienced advisors in this space so that they could implement actions that were practical and achievable now.

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The pre-survey also asked participants to rate their current knowledge. So this slide here shows responses from the 215 pre-survey responses on how would they rate their current knowledge around on-farm sources of emissions.

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I guess that sort of shows there is a broad brush approach here in that we didn't necessarily select participants that had no knowledge of emissions. We were also keen to work with those that perhaps knew a bit about them, but we're just seeking some further advice.

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And we also asked questions about whether they also felt confident in their ability to identify available actions to reduce on-farm emissions.

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And you'll note the varied responses. And I guess this demonstrated the need to ensure that any of our one-on-one farm visits allowed for flexibility in being able to work with the experience and starting points of each of the farmers that we met and spoke with.

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The way the team addressed this was to start the conversations from a farming system lens and then to tie that back to emissions.

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Our emissions profile infographic was one of our first products developed.

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Pulled together emissions accounting terminology. So scope one, two, and also three and talking about what net farm emissions and what a footprint actually is. But it also simplified the message. And that was one of the key things we kept hearing of

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There's a lot of information on there and how can we simplify it?

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And how could we actually tie that back? To a farm. So thus the simplification of the results and not the data that underpinned this was what we used within our pilot.

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And this made sure that what we were providing back to participants was that any information was relevant to their farm and their system.

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That had identified any of the limitations that might already be existence in some of the tools that we're using and the templates that we're already developing.

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And it highlighted the opportunity here for additional and further good record keeping to be able to underpin information and the assessments that we were doing.

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For those that want a deeper understanding, we could also go into more detail on how short-term carbon cycling in and around the farm, between gases, also sits behind the tools as well.

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And in this slide, I guess I just wanted to provide some examples outside of livestock industries with the prior slide having animals within that infographic. We also worked with a number of horticultural industries and intensive industries So you'll see here, this is an infographic that was developed for one of the participants that had both a vineyard and a winery on the farm.

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We've also worked with nursery producers and the pig and poultry industries to develop them their own individual action plans.

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So moving from these livestock industries into the more intensive and or plant-based industries has meant the evolution of this one-on-one template.

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And I guess there's also, as a result, been tailoring of our tools. So our worksheets that we take out on farm.

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As well as the information that we provide as we go through.

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I also mentioned that we've trained 38 staff and external contractors in this process now. A core piece of feedback from participants is that they did enjoy the one-on-one conversation.

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And I guess the key point was that they really wanted to have that with somebody they trusted and someone that was knowledgeable in the space.

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Some of those farm visits could be anywhere from two hours to an all day meeting, depending on whether a farm visit was included.

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But all of these consistent approaches actually identified one of the major limitations was around farm level data.

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And so I put up here on the slide, I won't have a chance to go through all of those for all of the different industries, but as part of the process, we did go through quite a bit of work to collect the farm records before we participated and went on farm.

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But what it actually allowed us to do was to do a preliminary estimate and then go back out on farm and sense check that with actual data sets or further information that might not have been able to be provided before we went out on farm.

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So while some participants had completed footprints previously, this was also new to many and so that data collection was often a barrier.

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I guess regardless of that, the key message really here is just to start. So start collecting data and start by knowing your number. And one quote I just wanted to raise here was also around expertise in advisors that we worked with.

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You know, we had one of our participants that said, you know, I really had no idea what I was doing before this. I hadn't really used a tool. They weren't as comfortable in talking about greenhouse gas emissions at all.

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And their key point here is you could send me to how many carbon neutral courses all you like, but I still had no idea until I actually got stuck into it.

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The other element and other valuable insight from this project has been the importance in the use of benchmarking.

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Often once an emissions assessments were provided to participants, there was that initial shock, I guess, quite often. So the confronting nature of having being told that you've got total tons of emissions carbon dioxide equivalents was often then followed by the question of how do I compare?

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So at the start of each new industry round, we would seek out industry benchmarks for us to use. And this slide just outlines one of those industries that we targeted, which was the dairy industry.

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It does have quite a robust data set and are profiled here the Dairy farm monitor data set that was used with one of our participants. And it shows how on the left we provided the dairy farm with their number, their emissions intensity number, which is a product of fat and protein corrected milk.

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And that's on the left. We then tied that to national benchmarks, which was in the middle there, highlighted in yellow, but also how they compared regionally.

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I guess not all industries are going to have this level of benchmark available to them, but as part of our project, we did do analysis to try and find other sources that could be used as proxy in the meantime.

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And once that comparison was made, it was then quite often the follow-up question, well, what can I do about it? So what about these emissions and what are my options available?

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This is where the farming system knowledge of our team has been so valuable.

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Initially, we were able to tie back a lot of those emission sources to greenhouse gas emissions and the inefficiencies in the system.

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And then at the actual one-on-one visit, we're able to flip that around and start to talk about and identify where further efficiencies may be within their system.

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The image on the left is how we outline the tiered approach to actions on farms. So focusing in on those efficiencies first, looking at opportunities to reduce absolute emissions.

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Where there might be insetting or offsetting opportunities and then the protection of any existing stocks of carbon they might have on the farm.

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And the image on the right is a snapshot of one of our facilitator worksheets, which were used for identifying efficiencies via a self-rating process we would do with the farmer.

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Where we would go through management practices and talk through where there might have been some further options for them.

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Those worksheets then focused on the do now actions. And as part of all of the action plans, we break down actions via a mission source using the infographic which I introduced earlier.

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And then we would use that infographic to then highlight where there were opportunities for emissions reduction.

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Not all are relevant to each participant. And so one of the key things within our tailored action plan is that the wording of each of these actions may differ by plan and it would depend on their starting point and need. But it would also link to existing industry resources that might be available to help and support them to actually implement that action.

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So these action areas around enteric methane, manure management, nitrous oxide, carbon dioxide and scope three inputs, they're not new, but the wording and tailoring of the actions was the value add we were providing through this process.

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Now, again, jumping out of the livestock industry example, this infographic starts to pull together some of those options that are available for the horticultural nursery and cropping industries that we worked with.

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So these systems often had more of a focus on reductions in fossil fuel use, input use and further data collection.

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But the added complexity in some of these systems was often with the need to refine data collection of multiple sites.

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And or along a value chain. So for example, if they had cool rooms and manufacturing on farm as well.

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Many of these were included in our analysis, but some weren't. And so some of the actions here, I guess, somewhat reflect that bias.

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We also talked about where there were opportunities to build and improve carbon on the farm.

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And so what we meant by that was actually the longer term carbon sequestration opportunities, but also where it was possible to protect existing stocks of carbon.

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So the types of actions we were talking about included additional trees, pasture and soil improvements, waterway management, and potentially the option for whole farm planning to support these actions.

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I guess of note, we should identify there were some challenges we encountered with estimating existing carbon on farm using the models that we did.

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But that's obviously something we can take offline and discuss further as part of this knowledge sharing process.

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So following the completion of the 229 action plans, farmers now have been offered that opportunity to apply for an action plan grant. This slide outlines some of the examples of those grant projects that we've already seen applied for through this process. We've seen a variety in the chosen projects and I guess the key point here is that many of these participants have chosen to do a combination of a number of these actions and not all participants as yet have applied for a grant. This is actually an ongoing process.

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But many of those actions tie back to those efficiencies that I mentioned in prior slides as a result of it being a do now action, something that they actually can purchase and implement within the sort of three to six month period of time after getting an action plan.

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This next slide just gives an overview of a couple of the examples of photos we've been sent back from those that have actually implemented their projects. It is exciting to start to see this practice change happening on farm as part of the pilot project. And I guess some of the photos here

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You will see more livestock focused, I guess, again, given the bias that we worked with a number of the livestock industries earlier in the pilot, that's coming through in some of the examples that you're seeing here.

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And a project, I guess, to highlight, we've got a couple that we've already started to put into case studies as well, which we've got on our website and for further information as we go.

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Now, I mentioned we surveyed farmers at multiple points of the process and we're still collating post-farm visit survey responses as it was only last week, but that we actually finished the 229th plan, which was pretty exciting for us. But I have included a couple of slides to just touch on some comparable data that we're evaluating now.

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We actually have only received 102 post-survey responses to date. So this slide is slightly different from the prior slide that I presented of all of the pre-survey responses, which was 215.

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And this slide only represents those that we've got the pre and post survey data from.

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However, this is still useful to see that there tends to be an increase in the knowledge of sources of emissions, as well as an increase in the confidence in their ability to identify available actions.

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This is great for us as a project. It's obviously very encouraging to see that already coming through from the results that we're getting and demonstrates that the one-on-one activity, the educational component of what we've delivered has been helping increase confidence, which is one of the things we set out to achieve.

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We also asked a question about reducing emissions and profitability. So the question was, how do you believe you can reduce How much do you believe you can reduce on-farm emissions without compromising your farm's profitability?

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The response shows a narrowing of the expectations around how much farmers believe they can reduce emissions without affecting profitability.

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And less of them are unsure of what potential there is to reduce emissions. So again.

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Positive trend we're seeing from the preliminary analysis of these survey results so far.

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And this slide here just wanted to highlight, we've also been asking more open-ended questions within our surveys so we can get a bit of a sense of how participants found the process working with someone on one-on-one with action planning all the way through to, well, what would you improve as part of the pilot if it was to be done again?

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So mostly what we've been seeing though is that there's been positive feedback to date. Mentioned before, but just to reiterate, they were grateful to have a real person to visit them and to talk to them about this issue. It is complex and often confusing and they really did want almost more time with advisors where possible.

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That farming system knowledge, linking that to emissions was a really great outcome and many of them appreciated that the action plans that we developed already took into consideration what they might have been already implementing on farm as well.

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And the local tailoring of their information and the benchmarks were seen as valuable.

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And I guess key note here, 93% of participants so far that are going through this process feel like they've achieved their original aim of joining the pilot, which is great.

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Here I've identified some of the thoughts on what is still needed. So here we're talking about perhaps where there's things that were identified through the one-on-one process or through the project itself.

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Some of these, as a pilot, we can't individually identify and fix. So things around clarity for markets and from policies and what that's actually demanding from them.

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Some of the tools and the measurement techniques that were used were still a concern for some.

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But the other key thing to note here is many of them also wanted more support or more opportunities to learn from others in the space.

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And even have asked whether or not there will be a follow-up. So in a year's time, will someone come and check how they're going, maybe redo their emissions assessment or look at providing additional emissions solutions for them.

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These are all things we'll take on board and noting that obviously it's just a bit of a snapshot at this point in time.

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But it's useful to be thinking about some of these as we start to move into the next phase of leveraging what we've already received.

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And final sort of outcome slide here, we still are seeing in the survey results, but also from conversations with stakeholders in this space outside of the pilot itself.

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Is that there still feels like there's things to overcome in this topic. So whether that be around the tools and calculators and their accuracy, whether that's providing more support for data collection and better record keeping, and that acknowledgement that this is still quite a complex space and there's no single solution.

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The final sort of quote that I'll highlight here was really tying into some of that solutions gap that I just mentioned.

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Which is, you know, we've got a long way to go. We thought we were right up there as environmentally sustainable and the top 20% of farmers But we have no hope of becoming carbon neutral at this rate.

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So really something to be mindful of that while we're seeing the research out there and hearing about those as they're progressing.

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The actual application of those unfamarmed is still feeling like a way away for some.

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And final point for me here before I'll then hand back over, but there's also a need to continue to share of all of these opportunities and challenges that I've briefly touched on in this presentation.

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We have been trying to do that with pilot participants where that's feasible. So we've conducted engagements where we've either gotten out as part of field days or presented in other webinars and conferences.

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But there is still more opportunity to do that and more than happy to work with others to share what we've learned to date. But that's a very good segue, I would feel, into hearing from one of our pilot participants about how they've actually gone through this process. And so Graham.

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I might hand back to you if you were going to introduce Jonathan and Ralph to us from here.

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But thanks.

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Perfect, Alison. Great time too. And there's so much that you've gone over the bit. You've done a really good job there of that.

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A view of the whole pilot and… And so just to dig down a bit deeper into an individual farm, we thought it'd be really important to to get that. And we really appreciate Jonathan Jenkin who's joined us today to share. He's one of the 250 participants.

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But I'll introduce Ralph Barrett. Now, Ralph, Ralph's based in Agriculture Victoria's Hamilton smart farm and it's got 34 years of experience in research development and extension in livestock farming systems.

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And research like developing condition score guidelines for merino and maternal composite use, evaluation pastures and forage systems and measuring feed efficiency and methane emissions from sheep.

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And we were really lucky that Ralph was able to join the Avica missions pilot team to help manage the project. So has done incredible amount of work getting the project running and also in truth, Jonathan Jenkin, thanks for joining us, Jonathan. Jonathan and Joe own and manage Banmore, a thousand hectare beef sheep property in Southwest Victoria.

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And having bought into the business 15 years ago, they took ownership in 2020. The family business has a long history in cattle breeding, but also over many decades undertaken extensive on-farm revegetation and habitat conservation so Both Jonathan and Joe have extensive careers in agriculture off farm and currently Jonathan's undertaking a post-grad research with the University of Melbourne in farm management economics, which also

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Is looking into the emission story. So over to you, Ralph.

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Thanks. Thanks, Graham. And we'll kick off just by Jonathan introducing his farm and giving a bit of information about the background to the business.

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Yeah, thanks, Ralph. And hi, everyone. Thanks, Alison, for a really interesting snapshot of the project. It was great to understand a little bit more about where it's the feedback that's been had such a broad uh cross-section of flowers across different industries.

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Yeah, so our property here is based in Southwest Victoria for those a little way away.

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Where, as you can see from a few notes there. We're on the edge of the Buckley Swamp, which is a little bit trier than normal at the moment. We're in some pretty dry conditions.

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For those who are not from around this way, which is a little unusual. And as said there were typically very wet winters And prone to quite a bit of water logging across our Out across our farm, which can be challenging at times.

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To mention there, yeah, we're involved in the initial pilot assessment back in 21, 22, which time we were going through a transition with our business looking at Moving away from our traditional, you know, Paul Hereford herd that we have with our cattle and it's looking at how we adapt and modify our composite feed program as well so

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With it in all the context of that, plus what was mentioned before in terms of our properties got a long history of trying to really manage in a sustainable way. We've put a lot of work and focus over the last 40 years in terms of re-edge.

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Back in the 80s, we're one of the traditional farms around here that pretty much had no tree cover.

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And we've really tried to get the farm up to 10 to 15% tree cover across the place.

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Through various means. It's mentioned there in terms of agroforestry back in the about 15, 20 years ago My parents were involved in integrating blue gum plantations within the farm in a pretty innovative way that was done in terms of shelter belts.

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Rather than just set blocks of land so that was harvested probably about four years ago and we've actually used those areas more as let them regrow as as areas that we can use for grazing with stock underneath, but also restore their

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Windbreak properties as well so within the context of that, we were certainly really interested in getting involved in the projects you know um We were made aware that this project was around and certainly myself and Joe were really keen to understand

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Within the wider context of the farm where our emission stat you know from the point of view, the legacy point of view the farm and the narrative around in terms of livestock production is is one that's really important to us and where we fit in that story and get a really a snapshot of where we sat so

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I'll hand back to you, Ralph perhaps just to give a little bit of a snapshot of What happened?

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Thanks, Jonathan. Next slide, please, Austin. Yeah, so I had the pleasure of doing the farm mission assessment with Joe and Jonathan and work on their the development of their action plan.

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We utilize the data from the 21, 22 year, and they are also participants in the Victorian project, which is called the Livestock Farm Monitor Project.

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Very good basis of record keeping, financial records and stock records.

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That we could use there. But we needed to augment that with some extra information on the farm about what their vegetation plannings were, the ages, the areas as well as what they were doing with some of the management of natural assets, but also how they manage their farm systems and

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The different cohorts of animals that they had. Were they you lambing those types of things. So because those things all impact the way you enter the data into things like the greenhouse accounting frameworks So at the farming visit, we also discussed the seasonal conditions for the year of analysis. It is just one snapshot for the year. And if you look at the infographic below

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There's 2,827 tonnes of CO2 equivalents that have been produced there, but this is one snapshot in time. And ideally you'd want to do snapshot over a number of years and get a longer term average.

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And because in this example, we found that, you know, there were additional ewes that were being held on for future mating.

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The year wasn't quite as good as it could have been for finishing and therefore stock weren't turned off as early as they could have been.

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And so the emissions intensity and emissions were increased. A couple of things about this infographic is that the footprint that's here is quite normal for a beef and sheep farm.

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It's fairly typical of the scale and size for Jonathan Joe's business.

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And represents really the numbers of animals that they're running on the farm.

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A couple of other things is that, you know, 80 to 90% of the emissions is methane emissions, which reflects the animals.

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And then 9% of emissions were related to nitrous oxide emissions from fertiliser, urine and dane.

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And leaching and runoff. And that comes from things like fertiliser that's being applied to the farm.

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As well as the dynamics of Euron and dung being cycled on the farm.

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So electricity was a fairly small component and CO2 emissions from electricity, fuel.

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There was a little bit from Lyme and urea. That will only amounted to about 1% of emissions. And again, this spread of sort of percentages of emissions is fairly typical for a livestock grazing enterprise with limited cropping. And likewise, if we go to the scope three emissions.

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That was only about 2% of emissions and relates to what they bought on in terms of purchased feeds, purchased fertilizers.

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Electricity and fuel. So, um.

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Fairly good example of a fairly typical farm in livestock systems in the southwest of Victoria.

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And… The other thing that we did look at was how much we could offset with trees and the point here is that the gaff tool that we're using provides a fairly conservative estimate of the sequestration.

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Jonathan and Joe have done quite a lot of tree planting. They've got remnant vegetation areas that they've protected.

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And all those areas we pulled into the GAF and provided an offset of around 149 tons there.

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Which was about a 5% emissions reduction. Now, that's a really conservative figure. We actually did further analysis. And part of the reason for that is that the coppiced blue gum area had only recently been harvest.

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Harvested so the regrowth was quite at a younger age so the sequestration rates were quite low for that.

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But we did do some scenario analysis and looked at if they could increase the amount of forestry plantation on their farm.

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Going from something like 10% of the property under vegetation to 17% using forestry plantings.

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Would nearly offset their emissions for a year. Now that would be on a sort of annual basis But there's limitations around that. As I pointed out, you get lower sequestration rates at the younger age and increased lower sequestration rates at older ages.

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So the offset isn't maintained. Forever and a day. So things change over time.

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So that's probably a really good point to hand over to Jonathan and just get him to talk about some of the changes they considered and Made.

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Yeah, thanks, Ralph. And I just wanted to just recap on, I guess, which is a common theme that came through Alison's.

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Talk and if there's any farmers online who are involved in the project that initial getting the order back and maybe those even who have done the audits outside the program is you know we we went in thinking, geez, we can't be that far away from carbon neutrality. We've done so much work.

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Blood tree planting over the years plus blue gum trees are there jim it mustn't be too bad but there is that initial feeling of, you know, you can be quite deflated and you can you can take it quite personally if you can choose.

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Well, not that we're a long way off where we thought we'd be.

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I just wanted to highlight, I guess, the importance that this project had in terms of that direct engagement that we had with Ralph coming out and a lot of long and detailed discussions ralph went there with myself and Joe in terms of understanding whether it's the trees

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Side of it, but it's the soil carbon side of it you know the contributions in terms of where we sat with our production system and the wider system understanding you know what where we were at from the point of view of uh in changing the production system what

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What contributions that was making in itself. And looking ahead you know what was going to happen to emissions on the basis of this You know, in terms of pulling different levers, it's mentioned here in terms of changing our production system over.

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And I guess suppose the brain, my brain can be quite economics based and thinking about you know how much down the track is it going to cost if there is a price on emissions or you know if we're thinking about

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From the point of view of you know protecting the integrity or the you know the return on our business and from piecing it all together, can we make the pieces work uh with with this the emissions side of things.

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So just, yeah, that I mentioned here, Ralph's put a few things together that we focused on. And as I mentioned before.

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At the time we were looking at changing over our cattle finishing system or from just selling um Kellers wieners over to Yellings, taking them into the next year.

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And understanding where that might sit from an emissions point of view.

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You know, we had a lot of questions over in terms of the from a nutrition point of view of our cattle in terms of getting through these wet winters and the impact on wieners wiener cattle and even from the point of view of our lambing timing and

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And the impact that we're having on with its survival rates and also at lambs at the point of weaning, how they were coming out in terms of impact on the audit and the figures that we're getting in terms of our emissions budget.

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What impact with further re-veg programs would have and even agroforestry, as Ralph mentioned.

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And we're also, there's an area of the farm that we've actually set aside since the audit as a dedicated wetland area that we're looking to manage a little bit differently on the property and what impact would that indeed have

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On the overall carbon account and the whole picture of the farm.

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What we've looked at. Maybe the next slide, I think, Alison.

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So in terms of what changes we made to our systems, so within the action plan, the pilot action plan that was put together, some of the key things that we decided to really focus in was that issue of the Wiener health and nutrition and the impact that that might have in terms of actually

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Growth rates and growth rates and indeed looking at that change that we indeed were making at the time.

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Traditionally our cattle business was focused on just Paul Herefords on pole herefords and we decided while we keep our maternal base we put majority of our cattle are terminally cross so we put blacks over the top of it And moving to that black baldy progeny, what impact might that have on our ability to one in terms of those growth rates?

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Through to weaning post weaning And indeed, if we're going to go to that system, which we decided to do out to yearling So rather than selling at eight to 10 months moving them out to 15 to 16 months so getting them

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Through that winter into the next spring, making the most of that um you know that cheapest and best quality feed that we have on farm standing feed.

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In the spring and getting them out the other side to feed lot weights.

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So within the pilot we talked about um getting involved, sorry, the action plan is actually purchasing in cooperation with the grant of an OptiWay unit. So for those might you No, and there was one that was pictured on the photos before and Optiway

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Is essentially an in-pedic wire with an NID unit and individually weighs animals in terms of real time and you can get that data on a daily basis and what that enabled us to do is really while we can move leave it in paddock say from seven to 10 days within mobs

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And once these animals have really been trained within the mob to even get curious around it, you'll find that you might get, say, out of a mob of 60, 70 weenies, you'll end up over time getting you know let's say

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15 to 20 within one day going to these readers and we can get good tracking of growth rates and changes. So we got a good feeling not only in terms of across different types of mobs In terms of sex and mobs or age groups or F1s versus non-F1s.

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How they're going and the impacts of our different nutrition plans and what we're doing and also our breeding.

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And that had a really big impact on what we were doing at the time. And we actually went back and actually looked at our audit comparing this initial audit to one for the financial year ending middle of last year and we'd seen it would

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Been able to transition across from selling from wieners to yearlings and only having a slight change in our carbon account in terms of our net emissions, but certainly significantly dropping our emissions intensity or, you know, in terms of per kilo of produced

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Red meat, the amount of emissions per head or per kilo that was sold rather.

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So that was really reassuring. As mentioned you know in terms of our sheep program, when we did our initial audit, we were doing a number of changes within the system so we had quite a dramatic change in our audit results

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That we did for the financial year and ending 2024 last year.

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So that was again reassuring in terms of looking at honing in on our system in terms of our production system.

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So look, it's hard to go into detail too much. Certainly there's a lot of great information I think, that will be produced within case studies, Ralph that are coming out that's been put together And people can get in contact if they want to know more from our business point of view. But just some key messages that

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That we gave feedback from in terms of the survey is For those who haven't done it, you know, do a gap assessment or a greenhouse carbon account. So be curious and don't take it personally if it wasn't what you expected

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Because there's a story behind it. But certainly know your baseline. But considering the stage the context of the business And the season and the year and know that it's only just one particular lens, you know, in terms of thinking about those

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Other different lenses you're looking through whether it's the the whole of farm you know biodiversity whether it's the farm economics or the people and the goals of the business etc so you to looking at through those different lenses collectively is

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You know as we know, as small business operators, that's the important thing um And longer term, I guess, consider this as a market-based issue as much as the global climate challenge and wicked problem.

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It's not one that's going to go away and it's one that's you know in terms of is really important for us to consider within our businesses from our perspective.

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Thanks, Ralph.

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Thanks, Jonathan and um yeah we're all in this together. There's lots of opportunities to reduce emissions and it's going to be a shared responsibility across multiple industries.

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As well as farmers as well as farmers what you've done in your work within the pilot is also already a very good positive step.

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So I'll hand over to Graham Anderson.

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Yeah, thanks. Thanks, Jonathan, for… For taking us into your own journey and it's just much appreciated and like there's 250 other stories of people who are also been wrestling with this across industries and So really appreciate that and the time it's taken. And also we've got a lot still to learn.

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So it doesn't all stop here, but it's a great snapshot of what's coming what's happening. So Thanks Heaps. There's been some great questions coming in.

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Which we've answered along the way as we've answered Trying and… can but in terms of the tools that were used, we do have a web page on what tools that we use. We're trying to use just publicly available carbon tools that were there for anyone to use off the shelf

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So we've got links to that. There's also, there was posted, I think, Heather.

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If there are any specific queries or people want to follow up with some more detailed discussion, there's an email address to the pilot team.

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Please put that through there and we'll get back to you.

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There's also a question around, well, where to next? One key sort of part of the pilot is in the coming months having feedback sessions with the pilot participants arranging some industry sort of catch-ups on webinars and things to to compare notes there but also

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Catch-ups with different industries and partners that we talked about as each round was unfolding.

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Be sharing that. And there's current projects like the carbon farming outreach Program, which is doing extension events right across Victoria. And there's one that's And that's to do with the Australian government.

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Supported that will be… teamed up with AgVic and the CMAs and Landcare, which will be having a bunch of events across the state that people can can join up and hear the latest about those in the next 12 There's also a few other projects on the go in the dairy industry, I think, too.

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As well with carbon farming extension outreach so plenty of opportunity to share more there.

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And one question, Alison, to you was just around The discussions, how did the discussions come up about talking about the issues of scope three And also farmer's own data and the issues of… how that's used and issues like mandatory

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Reporting and stuff, did that come up in discussions and how did you how did uh How did you handle those?

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Yeah, look, I guess, yes, we discussed all of those things. I guess part of the conversation and the value out of having a one-on-one kitchen conversation is you can ask all of the questions and we do say that up front when we

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We're out on our farm visit saying, you know, there's no stupid questions or if there's ones you're just unsure of, we can try and get to them during the session. I guess.

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In terms of the specifics about tools and some of the limitations and how they capture things like scope three.

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We obviously did try and be as transparent as possible about what we were collecting information for and what was being presented back.

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So we would talk about those infographics first and foremost about farm level emissions and just put the boundary around scope one and two in the first instance.

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And then we'd also show them a profile which included scope three. We would talk about maybe some of the differences in market requirements for some of those boundary issues.

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And I guess part of the process has been as we've been delivering this project, some of that has changed. So we're now seeing some of that mandated reporting and other things coming up Probably more so in the latter conversations we were having.

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Than those that were earlier on in the process. So we probably defer to where there's already existing available information.

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In regards to any of those processes and we do try and follow the accounting frameworks and guidelines for how you actually account for those on a farm scale whenever we're doing our emissions assessments as well.

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I think the key thing is that we try not to get too distracted in our conversation about those things that are the wider changes and trends that are being seen, but rather use those then to talk about, well, what actions are possible.

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And if you are one of those captured industries, which we didn't actually talk to participants that might have been in that situation but may do into the future. We just recommended that, well, at least now you've got a year's worth of data and probably the best thing to do now is to continue to collect

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Collect good data so that if and when you're asked in the future, you're quite comfortable with what you're actually providing as well.

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So I guess there's a couple of things to tease out there, but it is complicated. It is fast moving and we just try and be as transparent as possible when we're talking to our participants.

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Thanks, Dawson. Now there's plenty of questions coming in and uh I will say a few links that are being posted. Thanks, Heather. And there's also some fantastic case studies of some of the farm participants in the pilot that are on the website, as Alison said there um

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The question is about are we taking on any new participants so um No, at the moment, there's sort of the initiative was a pilot to run through from the 250 farms across industries And now the sort of the coming months is all about sharing those insights and working with

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Industry and other and supply chains and others about how do we take the lessons from it and feed that into all of those who are working with farmers over the next sort of few years. So no, so there's never an anticipation that we do all of Victoria's 20,000 farmers. It's more taking the

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The learnings from the 250 we've got here. And there's lots of this and lots of other key partners that are working out, well, how do we help and support farmers to make sense of emissions and get on with growing food and fibre but

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Each five years look back and we've taken 10% emissions off it so um So there's a lot of people involved in that space. There's a question around bioenergy solutions as part of the action plans.

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So Alison or Ralph, did that pop up much? It certainly was considered where farmers brought it up, I guess. That's what I'd say. But anything else to offer?

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Certainly has been discussed. I don't think anything has come through as an action plan grant in that sort of area at this point in time, but it has been brought up in a number of discussions on farm with different

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Participants.

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Yeah. So, and I guess there's a few questions there around how would we scale this up? And I think that's what we're really keen to talk to others about.

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And we know that through supply chains and others and some of our exporters.

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Have a real interest in this because they're saying, listen, Australia's got a great clean and green image on our agriculture, but increasingly some people are wanting to see the numbers for her emissions go to. So I guess that's the broader picture where we're all in collectively about, well, how do we do this, make it easier for farmers so that

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This sort of information can be can be pulled together and used to keep air clean and green image and and get some of those premium markets, which is what we're after. There's a question come in. Given experience so far, how do you see the value of focusing on

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Carbon neutrality. So any thoughts there? Because I know we hear a lot about net zero carbon neutrality and And any thoughts to offer from the Ranger Farms farmers you've spoken with?

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Yeah, look, I guess we probably focused in, it depended on the terminology that was being used within individual industries.

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So being sensitive to that, I guess, is one key point.

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The other is we probably focused in on probably less of a controversial sort of terminology of net zero.

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So I guess that's where that infographic initially came from sort of talking about the pluses and the minuses and where a net number ends up being, we're not necessarily coming out to participants to do an emissions audit or to certify them to

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A scheme. And so we're probably less about using a term like carbon neutral or getting to climate neutral or any of those things but rather if they were brought up or if someone asked about it, we would describe what those actually were or what that meant to that.

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Participants farm so we're probably, I guess, a little bit tool agnostic. We're terminology agnostic. We were just about trying to provide the right information as it was kind of asked and Yeah, just trying to be as flexible as possible

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With the industries we spoke to And being sensitive to what that industry uses as their terminology.

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And then… Great question from Karen Dean, envisage any new resources being created based on what's been learned from the project.

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So that can be used by other farmers on their journey so

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Sounds like you've been looking at my calendar because I think next week there's a meeting in there to talk about product development.

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So that's, yeah, there's templates and products and sample action plans and all of that sort of thing and steps through the journey that will all be publicly available in the coming months The team are just really pleased because two weeks ago

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They'd actually finish the one-to-one engagement and actually the last farm action plan of the pilot was done. So up until now, it's been very much flat out on the one-to-one working with individual farms, getting the data crunching the numbers, having the farm visits, customising the actions. But now we're sort of looking to circle back and just

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Provide some of the bits that work, the useful tips and templates and share that.

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Another question's come up a couple of times about to the tools or did the pilot consider for livestock emissions, feed supplements and and do the do the tool calculators.

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Are they able to… take that into account.

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Yeah, look, I guess we did talk to Livestock Industries earlier in the pilot and then again later. So it was really interesting seeing the shift in conversation about feed additives.

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Just even from two years ago to now. I guess part of the challenge we had was talking about them as solutions for do now actions. I guess we always talked about feed at it as if it was asked and we did talk about those that we're aware of that might exist already or that there's some R&D happening and we could sort of draw on that to sort of give a bit of an outline of what we thought was coming.

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As a solution. I guess it was dependent on the farming system and how readily available it is for them to adopt.

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Existing solutions like feed additives. Or whether or not we provided advice that they could become feed additive ready into the future. So some of the actions that we actually did describe for some livestock participants was, well, how would you actually utilize existing solutions if a market was going to demand that or look at seeking that from you?

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Over time and the critical kind of key message about how the tools handle it, I guess the key part is that's still going to be reliant on good record keeping.

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So what are you going to use to be able to provide as evidence if you do adopt feed additives? Do you have a good baseline already of what your emissions are doing on the farm before you go down this path? And do you actually understand how that actually will be recognised and rewarded from the market. So do you need to start investigating schemes that allow for that?

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Do you need to talk to your marketplace and supply chain to make sure that they're comfortable with the solutions and are okay within that system to accept those being used?

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01:03:51.802 --> 01:04:01.802
And I guess the key point there is a longer term action are these solutions, but for many, it wasn't necessarily a do now, right now.

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But it was always described in the action plans for livestock sectors to keep that in mind.

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Thank you. Now, I think we're going pretty we're running out of time, aren't we?

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Heather, how are we going?

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Yes, we've just clicked over but if people are happy to stay online and ask a few more questions, I think our panellists are happy to stay online for a little bit longer and take any more questions that pop in the chat.

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But if you have to leave, that's fair enough and there will be the recording.

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Right. Yeah, no, that's right.

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To come out.

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That's right. The recording's coming. I've just popped in some of the case studies. And I guess it'd be fair to say with a lot of the discussions, there was discussions around feed supplements or green your ear, low emissions fertilizers and what are the things

348
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And would it be fair to say, Alison Ralph. That while often in the media or you can see hear about some technology or innovation that's being researched.

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Some some of them I guess still a little while off and trying to, that's what farmers are really keen on about, well, what's the stuff I can do now? Was that a pretty common theme about saying, well, where can i get where can I buy it off the shelf?

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Which I thought was a good part of the reality check. Did that come up a bit?

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Yeah, I guess the reflection and then I'll let Ralph talk too is um we obviously saw a really broad cross-section of industries. So some solutions makes sense for certain systems and for others they're already adopting many of the low hanging fruit in those when they're already available. So I think one of the key themes that we got out of this is that

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Participants appreciated the recognition of actions they were already taking on farm.

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Even if that might not feel it's reflected in the emissions assessment, like Jonathan said.

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But I guess the key point was we wanted to make sure that it made sense because if they're already been adopting energy actions, for example, what's their next low hanging fruit that they could work towards?

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And that was where the farming system intelligence kind of came in in terms of what management practices and efficiencies could be possible to do now.

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We did have a bias, obviously, as part of the grant process that it was an immediate action that was going to be supported. So hence why we probably won't see things like feed additives and others perhaps coming through because of the nature of the grant because it was a three to six month kind of application window and something to do now.

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But we haven't seen everybody go through the grant process yet. So still plenty of insights to gather on the types of things that people are seeing. But yeah, sorry, Ralph, you were going to say something too

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It's a rapidly evolving area with lots of research happening just needs to be applicable to the current farm systems as as you've covered.

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That's right. And I know with the action plans, there was a lot working through, Ralph, because we've got existing technologies like, you know.

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In pastures or legumes and stuff and bit of a challenge for how well current some of the tools pick out that and also how do you prescribe what sort of percentage adoption is there existing on the farm so they're all

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Good insights for how would we need to improve this in time.

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One question, good one was about did any of the action plans also consider climate adaptation and dealing with climate risk as well as the emissions and carbon story.

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And I guess be pleased to say, yes, it did. It was a key thing.

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Has often reminded that farmers live on the front line of dealing with what the weather and climate throws at them so this is a a really big challenge about dealing with climate change itself.

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And the impacts of climate but also doing a contribution to doing a protecting and adding to carbon stores and reducing emissions. So that came up and I think probably most neatly in the farm dams examples were often farm dams and waterways were in

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There was a lot of discussion around, you know, how to help have drought-proof water storages but also cleaner water that um so the dam itself isn't actually producing methane emissions. So that was a key one.

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We've got another question there just around, was microbial biomass measured or I guess the key bit is that that the pilot used the existing tools and so when it came to measurement Basically, we weren't doing any actual measurements.

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If there was discussions around soil carbon and looking at soil carbon we were getting the data from farmer's existing soil carbon data.

369
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And what have you. So it wasn't a whole swag of measurements done per farm it was a an estimate using the existing tools and also the existing measurements that farmers had and compiled together to put that into the picture.

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Is that fair, Alison? For the summary.

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Yeah, and some actions might have described the need for measurement.

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Yep.

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And further monitoring perhaps within it as well so Yes, we did not go out with technologies for measurement as part of this process, but yeah, it's obviously a good point to note that they are estimates what we provided. But yeah, key point.

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Yeah. I think that was one of the key bits too, that the estimates and tools were sort of saying.

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None of the tools are perfect, but you've got to start somewhere and this stuff will get better.

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Appreciate that. And it all varies from season to season and Once farmers had their emissions intensity figure.

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Per kilo of product. Really interesting that, you know, as Ralph you'd said that um It's not all about one year. It's really about seeing how things go over time. But I think, Heather, we might have used up all of our time slot now so

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So back to you.

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Thank you. And thanks for those who have still hung in there. We did have quite a few online, a couple of hundred online and still 100 of you.

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Are still with us, so that's great. But we will close it out there. And I just want to thank our panelists, presenters today from AGVIC and also Jonathan one of our pilot participants.

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For sharing his story of his time with the pilot as well.

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Which has been really interesting. I just want to just remind you all that there will be a survey that should pop up on your screen when you exit out. So that'd be great if you can fill that in and any comments appreciated.

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And you will receive a recording of today's webinar. Following in the next day or two.

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But thank you all for your participation today and thank you again to our presenters.

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Have a good afternoon, everyone.

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Thank you. Thanks, Jonathan. I really appreciate it.