Addressing carbon neutrality by 2030 begins with some bookwork, at little cost to the livestock producer

The Australian red meat industry has pledged its commitment to carbon neutrality from 2030 and while emissions behind the farmgate will not yet have to count, farmers will be asked to help support their extensive industry supply chain.

According to MLA's CN30 manager Margaret Jewell, the program "recognises the fact that Australian red meat producers are custodians of a huge area of land, that has potential to store carbon in trees and soil, which can be used against whole of industry residual emissions."

Beef producer Tom Amey, Simpkins Creek via Casino, has embraced the CN30 challenge and says the path to quantifying a climate footprint was one that made sense from his professional point of view.

"When people ask if I am a "regen" farmer, I answer no," he says. "Instead, I'm for world's best practice."

The first step along this path was to establish the farm's carbon footprint, an inexpensive process using a free spreadsheet calculator designed by Professor Richard Eckard from the University of Melbourne.

While the tool only analyses emissions from methane, nitrous oxide and carbon dioxide, it requires detailed information about cattle type and feed quality. Very quickly Mr Amey understood the need for guidance and enrolled in the university's educational course to help farmers enter the right data into their calculator.

After crunching the numbers it became clear there were few paths to riches in selling excess carbon credits. In fact, the average farmer will have trouble proving their neutrality, given the mammoth impact of livestock methane emissions.

On Mr Amey's home farm there is reliable coastal rainfall on volcanic soils with adequate tree cover and yet methane emissions alone accounted for 623 tonnes of atmospheric carbon dioxide equivalent out of a total of 867t. When sequestered carbon from trees was accounted for (529t) the deficit came out at 338t.

On Mr Amey's second farm with 30 per cent tree cover carbon sequestration more than made up for methane emissions but when the two farms were combined, his net emissions remained 159t in the red

In order to correct that figure and create a carbon neutral enterprise he will now set-aside about 4pc of the home farm, or 10ha, to balance the equation.

With regards to other factors in his home farms' footprint, fuel use was a paltry 4.3t; fertiliser, herbicides and feed added up to 12t; manure, including urine and dung in the paddock, came to 59t.

Reducing methane from livestock involves better animal husbandry. Cows burp methane whether they are suckling calves or empty, so higher rates of conception work in a farmers' favour both in proving carbon neutrality and in boosting productivity. There is an argument here for moderate framed breeders.

Filling the summer feed gap with tropical pasture and winter feed gap with legumes and rye avoids importing expensive feed - both in terms of price and carbon footprint - and maintains growth of stock, which is a key part of becoming carbon neutral. That's because turning off younger cattle not only meets market expectations, it also reduces a farm's methane emissions simply because an animal is emitting on the property for less time.

"For me, the elephant in the room is the emissions from cows," Mr Amey said. "All the other footprints like fuel and fertilisers are just rats and mice."

At Mr Amey's property 20pc tree canopy cover counts for a lot in carbon calculations. Pasture can be maintained around deep rooted ironbark with creeping bluegrass growing right up to the trunk.

Shallow rooted box trees don't work the same way and in dry times a bare halo will emerge around each trunk.

"This is all about acknowledging the problem and providing solutions," he said. "It means as a beef producer I have to do a bit more and I will be on the positive side of the equation. There are opportunities to increase production of a beef enterprise while increasing the natural capital worth of that property."

Read more: Casino operator buys farmland to offset carbon emissions.

The carbon calculator was first developed by Prof Richard Eckard for the cropping and dairy industries in 2003.

"The main interest is actually not from governments," he said. "But from the supply chain and the banks, all of whom have set targets for emission reductions. This is what has created the most interest from farmers understanding that, by 2030, they will need to be addressing these issues to access their own supply chain - our job is to produce the tools that allow them to develop by their own baseline and understand what are the key things they can do today to start moving in that direction."

To give an idea of uptake, the carbon neutral agriculture training course for farmers run by The University of Melbourne has 2000 enrolled for 2023 up from 750 last year.

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