World’s best beef and make carbon pay at the same time

significant carbon sink. In addition to these Government-sponsored schemes, other markets are emerging which will allow private companies to buy carbon offsets from farmers who can demonstrate they are growing carbon in their soil.

Our farm business, Wilmot Cattle Company, demonstrated how to do this earlier this year by selling a soil carbon credit to world technology leader, Microsoft, who had just embarked on an ambitious carbon offsetting program.

Yes, it’s true; cattle farming really can help reduce carbon emissions! So, all of you who have been told that you can no longer enjoy a good steak on your barbecue can think again.

It’s a win-win. Soil carbon farming can increase the profitability of the farm’s core business – crops, dairy, or livestock – and allow the farmer to earn extra income from selling offsets, while, at the same time reducing net emissions and helping combat climate change.

Many large Australian companies are now working hard on how to offset their carbon footprints, so I can see many more opportunities for farmers to benefit by growing carbon as part of their day-to-day farming operations and selling this carbon on one of the carbon markets that will emerge alongside the Government’s existing carbon fund.

But this way of farming is not widely understood. Importantly, there is little information which links carbon farming with overall profitability of farms. To encourage the wider uptake of farming that places a greater emphasis on the improvement of soil carbon and other natural resources, the Macdoch Foundation has initiated a program designed in collaboration with producers, farm advisers, industry bodies and the food supply chain, called Farming for The Future.

Its aim is to find practical ways to help farmers incorporate the value and condition of their natural resources (or natural capital) to help them make better-informed farm management decisions. All of these initiatives will help ensure that our farmers can remain productive and profitable, while, at the same time, helping Australia meet its climate change targets.

And I will be at the climate change conference in Glasgow next month to tell global leaders how Australian ingenuity and hard work is making this happen.