Getting feed additive-ready

Julian Carroll is a commercial beef and seed stock producer based in Mudgegonga in north-east Victoria. He runs a self-replacing beef breeding enterprise with around 450 cattle farmed on 283 ha with winter calving and some strategic stock containment in autumn.

He signed up for the On-Farm Emissions Action Plan Pilot to become part of the solution to climate change by actively positioning his business to be ready for when market opportunities present themselves and potentially place a value on the emissions of livestock enterprises. Julian is also interested and preparing for a time when he can make informed decisions about the adoption of feed additives when they are commercially available.

‘We think it’s important to understand our own carbon footprint and our emissions intensity as part of our risk mitigation strategy, but also because we think there’s going to be a marketing component to it in the coming years,' Julian said.

The property is in highly fertile country, with annual dominant pastures of ryegrass and sub clover and 48 ha of mixed species vegetation. Julian also produces silage that is used when he strategically moves stock to containment to protect pastures.

‘So, the way we use them (stock containment areas) is we’ve got our cattle in here until they’re ready to eat grass straight out of the paddock,' he said. 'This particular feeding system makes sure that we can replicate our experiences of the good years, which is early growth in young cattle.’

For Julian the enteric methane (methane produced by livestock intestines) proportion of his emissions profile was the biggest surprise.

‘We can see in our emissions footprint that enteric emissions are the biggest aspect that we could work on and achieve some improvements,' he said. 'For us, it is about maximising productivity, making sure we hit our target markets as early as possible, or reduce wastage by having better reproductive outcomes.’

For these reasons Julian looked at his feeder steer turnoff and determined that the time frame can vary up to six weeks depending on seasonal conditions.

‘For every two weeks we bring forward our turnoff of a B-double load of steers, we drop 13 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO₂-e) emissions out of our system,' he said. So, 26 tonnes of reduced emissions if we can bring forward our date by a month.’

About the pilot

The pilot supported up to 250 farm businesses across the state to measure their on-farm emissions profile and identify potential actions to manage and reduce emissions while maintaining productivity.

The pilot is being delivered as part of the Agriculture Sector Emissions Reduction Pledge to provide practical information, tools and services to support farmers to understand and reduce emissions.

A number of free, practical tools and resources have been developed and are available on our website to help inform and educate the industry about weather and climate patterns, carbon emissions, and energy use on farms;

• The Soil Carbon Snapshot delivers the latest science around soil carbon and includes links to 70 research references and soil carbon reports relevant to Australian agriculture.
• Agriculture Victoria also delivers climate webinars on topics relevant to primary producers and others working in agriculture.  Subscribe to be notified when new webinars become available.
• For farmers considering selling carbon credits from their trees or soils, a revised set of Frequently Asked Questions has been developed to help inform business decision-making.