Agmates

This is part 1 in a 5 part information and education series on biosequestration of carbon in Soil.

The presenter is Dr Christine Jones who is an internationally renowned and highly respected groundcover and soils ecologist.

Dr Jones has a wealth of experience working with innovative landholders to implement regenerative land management techniques that enhance biodiversity, increase biological activity, sequester carbon, activate soil nutrient cycles, restore water balance, improve productivity and create new topsoil.

This video is the first of a 5 part series covering the Keynote presentation that she gave at the 2008 Queensland Landcare Conference just last month at Monto .

We’ll run the rest of this series over the next week.

.

(thanks to Agmates readers, Ian & Oscar Pearce of AgForce and Beryl and Cec Bleys of Monto who filmed the presentation.)

.

Agmates Video Gallery.

.

Have Your say!

Seen a video or you’d like to be seen by the Agmates Community? If so please email it to us at news@agmates.com

In what can only be described as a scandalous act of deception it has been revealed that the IPCC has grossly overstated global livestock emissions.

The FAO report, Livestock’s Long Shadow, [pictured] made public last year to world acclaim, states that livestock contributes 18 per cent of the global warming effect, even more than transport.

But buried in the report is the information that deforestation - mainly in the Amazonian rainforest - is included in that figure. Without it, livestock’s contribution falls to less than 12 per cent.

.

One of the report’s main authors, Pierre Gerber, a Food Agriculture Organization of the United Nations livestock policy officer, has been openly critical of IPCC Chairman Dr Rajendra Pachauri and others, saying they had misused the information in the report.

If you recall, based on the report Dr Pachauri [pictured] an Indian Economist and Vegetarian has been campaigning for the world to eat less meat to fight global warming.

In Professor Ross Garnaut final report last week he devoted an entire section to cutting Australia’s livestock emissions, extensively quoting the trumped up 18% figure for Australia’s livestock emissions.

This is just another example of how the IPCC has distorted and misconstrue the science. Yet they still maintain credibility. This is the science that Kevin Rudd and his Labor team are relying on to set policy in Australia.

The emissions trading scheme Rudd intends to introduce in just 14 months time will cost ordinary Australians $5 billion dollars in Carbon Taxes in the first year. Based on this kind on dodgy representation of the science, it will be an abject disaster, particularly for Australian Agriculture.

.

(thanks to Agmate - Jeff)

.

Have Your Say!

.

Got a tip off, article or have you seen a video or item you’d like to be seen by the Agmates Community? If so please email it to us at news@agmates.com

Agmates has stated that the proposed Emissions Trading Scheme will do little to fight climate change. In my opinion the scheme is chiefly designed to give the Rudd Government global green kudos and Australian’s a warm and fuzzy green glow.

Leading British scientist Dr James Lovelock [ picture ] backs up what I and others have been saying. In an interview with Radio New Zealand he has warned that Emissions Trading Schemes world wide are a waste of time.

He says while an ETS will help the profits of some companies, it will do nothing to stop global warming.

Listen to a podcast of what Lovelock had to say Here.

Lovelock was one of the first scientist to warn the world of the impacts of global warming.

He is also the man who formulated the Gaia hypothesis, was the first man to detect the presence of CFC’s and has predicted that 80% of humans will perish by 2100 AD, and this climate change will last 100,000 years.

The Rudd government should abandon the ETS sham and move to take practical measures that will have a real and lasting impact on the environment. Those steps should be anything that will prepare us as a nation for what lies ahead.

( thanks to reader Jeff)

Article also Appears on Crikey Rooted.

.

Have Your Say!

.

Got a tip off, article or have you seen a video or item you’d like to be seen by the Agmates Community? If so please email it to us at news@agmates.com

Ian Plimer [ pictured ] is Emeritus Professor of Earth Sciences at The University of Melbourne and Professor of Mining Geology at The University of Adelaide.

Professor Plimer is about to launch his new book

“Emissions Trading - Why Bother?“.

Professor Plimer will be speaking at the launch of the book at the Sydney Mining Club on the 6th of November if any of you are about and would like to attend.

With the Rudd Government due to launch an emissions trading regime in just 14 months time, Professor Ian Plimer will present an array of arguments that contradict the Global Warming science put forward by the IPCC, Professor James Hansen and his global spokesman Al Gore.

Some of those arguments are:

• Planet Earth has form in producing Greenhouse gases - major form - particularly from volcanic eruptions.
• The quantity of solar radiation the Sun gushes at Earth each year also varies dramatically as flares and gravitational orbit wobbles change the amount of heat we intersect.
• There are also concerns that the way we measure temperature is skewed in favour of a warming Earth.
• Against the backdrop of geological time - and our inability to distinguish any anthropogenic affects -
• Not only has the Earth endowed us with great resource wealth but also with detailed tracers of the past. The rate and amount of modern climate change is well within past variability.
• The current rate of sea level rise is low, changing sea levels is normal, sea levels can over geological time change by up to 600 metres.
• The atmospheric CO2 content at present is the lowest for millions of years. CO2 levels have been up to 25 times higher than at present yet, during the history of the planet, CO2 has not created acid oceans.
• Natural processes capture and store CO2. Planet Earth is a warm, wet greenhouse planet that has had ice for only 20% of geological time.
• Extinction of life on Earth is normal and life is most commonly stressed by cold climates.
• Temperature is buffered by the water cycle.
• Supernova eruptions, the Sun, the Earth’s orbit, tectonics and the water cycle are the primary drivers of climate.
• In the past, CO2 changes have followed temperature changes.

.

Against the backdrop of these scientific arguments Plimer poses the very sensible question, and one that Agmates has been asking: “Kevin Rudds $5 Billion Mug Punt”

.

“Why punt severe impact to Australia’s economy, and most notably the well-being of its buoyant primary producers, by volunteering the nation as a pioneer in the emissions trading concept.”

.

(more…)

Beef consumption per head of population in Australia has not changed since 1960. Ross Garnaut and others fanciful suggestion that Australians should shift from eating beef and lamb to Kangaroo would entail a massive re - education program of consumers and or incredibly cheap retail prices.

The below graphs sourced from ABARE show that the retail price is an all important factor in what meat familes buy and consume.

You can see from the graph that retail beef prices in 2006 were just above those of 46 years previous. Poultry on the other hand was just 20% of its 1960 equivalent. Note the big beef price drop during the beef crash of the 1970’s.

Now for the Consumption per capita (person) for the same period.

Things we can learn from the two graphs.

1. Note the only time that beef consumption has risen during the 46 year period was during the 1970’s cattle crash. Except for this period beef consumption been flat lining for the last four and a half decades. This is despite Meat and Livestock Australia spending millions of dollars of producers levy money on domestic promotion over the last decade.

2. Sky rocketing consumption of Poultry (900% increase) is in direct relation to the plummeting retail price.

From the two graphs it would appear that if Roo meat was to retail at about the same price as Poutry, Australian consumption would automatically dramatically increase.

There is the conundrum. If Roo meat has to be sold at those sort of prices, how do producers make any money from the enterprise? Currently beef producers receive about $2.50 - $3.50 a kilo carcass price for beef. Roo carcass price is approximately 0.70 cents - 0.90 cents a kilo carcass weight.

There are about 3 million Roo’s killed each year for consumption. Of the 3 million 30% go to pet food and 70% to human consumption. Of that 70% - 30% is sold domestically and 70% is exported, with the largest market Russia. The Russians cheifly use it as a beef substitute filler in cheaper sausage meats.

Senator Ron Boswell touches on why producing cheap Roo meat is an impractical dream.

.

Have Your say!

.

Got a tip off, article or have you seen a video or item you’d like to be seen by the Agmates Community? If so please email it to us at news@agmates.com

QLD Senator Ron Boswell [pictured] has written to Agmates about Ross Garnaut’s fanciful suggestion that Australian farmers graze Roo’s instead of cattle and sheep.

This article has earned Senator Boswell our latest Agmates “Onya” award.

In the article he demonstrates a particularly deep understanding of how the Australian Farming industry works. This understanding is something that Garnaut and the green brigade supporting this fanciful idea obviously lack.

KANGAROO FARMS - A EUREKA MOMENT FROM GARNAUT

The Garnaut Review suggests that Australia takes 9.1million hectares out of current land use to grow trees and that we run 240 million kangaroos instead of 7 million cattle and 36 million sheep. This is a daft proposition totally removed from reality.

On Page 547 of the Garnaut Review, it says:-.

“They conclude that by 2020 beef cattle and sheep numbers in the rangelands could be reduced by 7 million and 36 million respectively, and that this would create the opportunity for an increase in kangaroo numbers from 34 million today to 240 million by 2020. They estimate that meat production from 175 million kangaroos would be sufficient to replace the forgone lamb and beef meat production …”

.

It reads more like a sci fi horror movie than an intelligent policy proposal.

Firstly, taking 9.1m ha to grow trees will savage agricultural food production, hurting domestic food security as well as that of our overseas buyers.

Secondly, the idea of running kangaroos on such a massive scale beggars belief.

• All the fences would have to be trebled in height for starters.
• New investment in saleyards, kangaroo trucks and abattoirs would be required.
• Even tagging poses problems if the National Livestock Identification Scheme applied.
• I don’t think the Australian people would like to see their national symbol branded with a branding iron.
• Producers would have to establish stud breeder criteria and registration, artificial insemination procedures and so on.
• Kangaroo stewards at Royal Agricultural Shows would need to be trained and appointed and probably protected as they led the Show Champion Kangaroo around the ring.

Woolworths could re-badge themselves as ‘The Fresh Roo People’.

We would have to invest in new advertising to market our product overseas, perhaps along the lines of ‘Put another roo on the barbie’ or ‘Where the bloody hell are roo?’

Seriously, can you take this report seriously?

How do we sell the need to adapt to climate change when the leading advice contains this fantasy?

END……….

For that great piece of common sense Senator Boswell joins out prestigious list of Agmates “Onya’ Recipients.

In fact this is Ron’s second “Onya” award. (to date the only person to have won two).

So “Onya” Ron from the Agmates community. A big Thumbs up.

.

Have Your Say!

Got a tip off, article or have you seen a video or item you’d like to be seen by the Agmates Community? If so please email it to us at news@agmates.com

Todays Crikey “Rooted” article is a ripper.

Agmate’s and North Queensland graziers Glenn and Natalie Williams [ pictured below] put the general public straight on what our farmers are doing about carbon sequestration.

Great stuff Natalie.

.

“I have to wonder if ordinary Australian’s get away from the computer long enough to get outside and actually make a difference to the world…and sequester some carbon.

Farmers and graziers are sequestering more carbon in a week than other Australian would in a lifetime.

How do I know? Because I am walking the talk ….We have documented and satalite evidence that our pastures have changed from D class to A class in just over 5 years….(look up the DNR&M website for clarification of pasture assessment if you don’t already know).

We have done this over our entire property of 17000 acres. My husband and I are not anything unusual ….farmers and graziers are doing this everyday of the week in Australia and this goes on unrecognized and deliberately avoided.”

.

Read the rest of this Article on Crikey Here

.

Have Your Say.

.

Got a tip off, article or have you seen a video or item you’d like to be seen by the Agmates Community? If so please email it to us at news@agmates.com

World finance makets are in melt down today. But here are some great numbers for Australias farmers, as at lunch time today:

.

• The Aussie dollar was trading around 72 US cents, just 9 weeks ago it was 98cents. This will represent a massive boost for farm incomes.
• Oil was under $US89 a barrel, just 10 weeks ago it was $147 a barrel. Thats a 40% drop with no high dollar to distort the price. This should mean we will see fuel that was $1.70 a litre 10 weeks ago now back under a dollar a litre.
• The Reserve bank is expected to cut interest rates by half a percent today with more cuts expected to follow. It was just 12 weeks ago as variable rates edged up toward 10% that the Reserve was talking up more rate rises.

.

The four major farm inputs are interest on debt, fuel, fertilizer & chemical (chemical & fertilizer prices are driven by oil prices). The cost all four major inputs has fallen dramatically. The dramatic fall in the dollar will drive export commodity prices up.

The Emissions Trading Scheme is dead and buried, or at least delayed indefinitely. Imposing an ETS on an economy is the perogative of only wealthy Western Countries.

The Government will have its hands full securing our economy in the face of a resources slow down that will follow a Western World recession, as surely as night follows day. It can ill afford to saddle the ecomony with the fiscal pressure of a go-it-alone carbon tax in industry and jobs.

The chances of the major emitting nations of the USA, China, Russia and India agreeing to restrict their economies will now be Slim to none, and Slim just let the building.

At last farmers had something to smile about. Its not all bad news. Unless of course farmers had borrowed up big to buy Shares or Urban Real Estate. Thats not likely.

In my previous article $5 billion Potential in farming from Biosequestration in soil, pasture and trees. I pointed out that the Australian government needed to look at the huge potential of biosequestration on our rangelands to offset carbon emissions.

I called for more funding for research and for vigoursous lobbying in the lead up to the next Climate Conference in Copenhagen in 2009.

Grant Molloy of Dairy Park between Bathurst and Cowra NSW has forwarded this email from fellow grazier and Holistic Management Educator Bruce Ward.

It turns out that Tim Flannery is actively championing farmers causes in both of the areas I put forward. This is particularly relevant in that Tim is the Chair of Australia’s Copenhagen Committee. Grant writes:

.

“This email was sent to me today from Bruce Ward Holistic Management educator, the bloke that educated myself.

The section of the interview relevant to farmers ( I think it is all relevant) starts at 34 minutes. This is a positive that we should focus on, particularly considering the carbon emission issues that we face are nearly over whelming, for some.

.

I have listened to the interview and I agree with Grant that is tremendous. Goes for about 50minutes. Heres the email from Bruce [ pictured ]. Link to the Audio is at the bottom. Click on Listen now, Like I did, you’ll learn a lot.

.

(more…)

Professor Ross Garnaut in his final climate change report does see a silver lining for farmers and rural communities. The potential revenue for biosequestration for farmers at a carbon price of $20 a tonne is $5 billion dollars a year.

Opposition climate change spokesperson Greg Hunt [ pictured] is a biosequestration enthusiast:

.

“We have been talking of a conservative target of 60 to 80 million tonnes a year of natural sequestration, he says.

Garnaut has gone for a bolder figure of 250 million tonnes from a combination of soils, pastures, woodlands and forests.

I don’t think that is outrageous or unreasonable in terms of its potential for Australia. At a carbon price of $10 a tonne, that is $2.5 billion going to rural Australia each year.”

.

One of the major stumbling blocks for Australian farmers to realize this potential is that the Kyoto protocol does not recognize carbon sequestration from soils, pasture, woodland or forests established pre- 1990.

The second impediment is a globally accepted accounting method for sequestration by soils and pasture.

(more…)