Agmates

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.

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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.

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(thanks to Agmate - Jeff)

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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.

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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 …”

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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.

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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:

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“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.”

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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…)

Professor Ross Garnaut has said that it is only a global solution that will have any impact global warming.

Now finally someone is talking some sense.

Opposition Emissions Trading Scheme spokesman Andrew Robb [ pictured below] is calling for the emissions trading scheme to be delayed for two years.

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The meltdown had to be taken into account. ”It’s going to discourage other countries around the world, they’re going to look at other priorities, and it’s going to put pressure on the speed with which they tackle climate change,” he said.

The Government should also wait for the result of world climate talks in Copenhagen in late 2009.

Mr Robb reiterated the Opposition’s policy that emissions trading should start in ”2012 at the latest”.

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Kevin Rudd should take his Emissions Trading Scheme to next federal election due in 2010. Like former Prime Minister John Howard did with the GST he should give the Australian public the opportunity to decide if we want it or not.

Doing that would allow the Australian public to have a good look at the full costs and implications of the scheme. I doubt the Rudd government would have the courage to do that.

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Terry McCrann is certain that the Global Financial Crisis will ensure that Kevin Rudds / Ross Garnaut’s emissions trading scheme will not eventuate in 2010.

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“BEAUTIFUL. The release of the Garnaut report could not have been better timed. It was dead, dead, dead, before it hit the table.

The dark greens and all the climate carpetbaggers and main-chancers who have sprouted like weeds at the prospect of sharing in the 21st century theological rents will come to look back wistfully at his - original - modest emission reduction targets.”

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After reading the Garnaut report Terry, I can tell you that almost everybody in Rural & Regional Australia hopes your right.

Seems that the specter of a recession in Europe is causing more than a few members of the European Union to also have second thoughts.

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“Poland has joined Germany in calling for industry exemptions to EU climate rules as a recession in Europe’s major economies is casting doubts on whether Brussels will be able to push through its ambitious CO2 reduction programme.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel announced that her government “could not support the destruction of German jobs through an ill-advised climate policy”, the Financial Times reported.”

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Heres Hoping, that it is dead, at least until after Copenhagen in December 2009 when we can see if the big emitters are willing to act.
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Unless global consensus on reducing CO2 emissions is reached ordinary Australian’s financial sacrifice made under an Emissions Trading Scheme is a ‘mug punt’.

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“Let’s face the reality - the only solution will be a global solution,” [sic Garnaut] he told ABC radio.

Australia could cut emissions to zero, could do it tomorrow - it couldn’t actually do it, but if it did do it - it would have almost no effect on global warming.

If we did ourselves great damage in the process we would become an example to the world of how foolish it is (to) mitigate.”

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The best estimate I can find at the moment is that the ETS will net the federal Government $5 billion dollars revenue even after the petrol rebate is paid.

Lets put it in the simplest terms. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd is willing to bet $5 billion dollars of tax payers money in the first year (2010) that the world will reach agreement in Copenhagen in December 2009. Even Garnaut admits an agreement is “highly unlikely”.

If there is no agreement reached, the Australian Tax payer will pay $5 billion each year plus a proposed 4% increase plus CPI each and every year after that.

Expand that out to the year 2020 and if no global agreement has been reached to curb the emissions of the USA, China, India and Russia, Australians will have paid out approx $60 billion dollars to reduce global temperatures by ZERO.

So we are not far from betting $5 billion on something that we don’t believe will happen and as a result have zero affect on Global Warming. I don’t bet on the horses, but even I can spot a Mug Punter.

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Queensland Senator Ron Boswell writes:

The Garnaut Climate Change Review final report neglects food security and the current world food shortages.

There is a balance between food and trees and Professor Garnaut’s report tips this fine balance well and truly away from food.

This paper doesn’t give any significant consideration to food security. In fact it goes the other way and seeks to reduce Australia’s beef herd by a massive 7million cattle and 36 million sheep by 2020.

The only food shortage solution Professor Garnaut comes up with is to increase the number of kangaroos from 34 million to 240million by 2020.

For Garnaut to come out with an Emissions Trading Scheme that has no thought of food security shows a lack of real balanced consideration.

Australia should be the food bowl of the world; instead Garnaut’s answer is to turn us into a tree basin.

In one fell swoop Garnaut recommends turning 9.1 million hectares of marginal sheep and cattle country into a forestry plantation. The sunburnt country will be turned into a nation covered by trees and kangaroos if Professor Garnaut has his way.

There is no discussion of the socio-economic impact on communities in the regions that will no longer have livestock and will be covered by trees that will be produced, not for timber, but to be buried in the ground (The Australian, p1, 30/09/08).

What will happen to the people, the jobs and the towns, Professor Garnaut?

It has already been established by one abattoir, that they will be paying $33.60per head extra to cover the cost of the ruminant emissions and $17 per head for increased electricity cost.

This increase of $50 per head will no doubt be taken out of the pockets of the grazier. How much will it cost for one of the world’s major protein sources if we accept Garnaut’s industry numbers decline?

Garnaut seems to be on some sort of frolic where he dreams 240 million kangaroos and 9.1 million hectares of trees solving the problems of the world.

Alas, this latest Garnaut report goes from the sublime to the ridiculous. The whole process is losing credibility by the outlandish concepts that this latest paper discusses.

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Ross Garnaut understanding that under the proposed Emissions Trading Scheme rural and regional Australian communities are “Rooted” .

He has sunk to the depths of ridiculous in ways he believes Australian farmers can benefit from the scheme.

Read the Garnaut report, in it he indicates that those farmers running cattle and sheep are in for a very tough time from day one and will be completely un - viable after Agriculture is bought into the scheme around 2013. From that point farmers will have to buy permits to cover their livestock Methane emissions.

His solution is laughable - switch from cattle and sheep grazing to Kangaroos.

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AUSTRALIANS should replace beef and lamb on the dinner table with kangaroo to fight climate change, Kevin Rudd’s chief climate change adviser says.

They conclude that by 2020, beef cattle and sheep numbers in the rangelands could be reduced by seven million and 36 million respectively, and that this would create the opportunity for an increase in kangaroo numbers from 34 million today to 240million by 2020,” he says.

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Below is a photo of Skippy fattened on Salt bush.

Garnaut in his report is desperate to find some glimmer of hope for farmers. This purely fanciful suggestion is testamony to that.

Garnaut notes there are some barriers to the switch to Roo meat. As stated by the good professor they are:

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Livestock and Farm Management issues

Consumer resistance

and a gradual Nature of change in food tastes.

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This whole business would be hilarious if it wasn’t such deadly serious nonsense. Farmers need solutions to their long term viability now not in 3 generations time when consumer food tastes change.

Garnaut knows farmers are the “sacrifical lambs” in this ETS sham. Garnaut admits the ETS will have zero impact on Global climate.

He also knows that Farmers and rural communities will be crucified by the scheme, which is chiefly desinged to give the Rudd Government global green kudos and Australian Urban dwellers a warm and fuzzy green glow.

What a national disgrace.

(thanks to Agmates reader MattB)

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Sorry guys that I’ve have not posted earlier today. I’ve been digesting Professor Ross Garnaut’s final Climate Change Review.

If you live in Rural and regional Australia it’s pretty grim reading. Rural & Regional Australia has been the casualty in the last two decades as Australia has removed import barriers and persued free trade.

Granted that free trade policy has allowed Australia to prosper via the resources boom, however it is widely agreed that Rural & Regional Auistralia has paid the price.

Ross Garnaut acknowledges that fact in his report but warns that once again it will be Rural and regional Australia that will be impacted much harder by the ETS than folk in the cities.

In Chapter 16 of His Report - “Sharing The Burden in Australia”:

Bear in mind he is not talking about the impacts of climate change here he is talking about the impacts of an emissions trading scheme.

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From the commencement of an emissions trading scheme, costs of agricultural inputs-electricity, liquid fuel and fertiliser-will rise. This will particularly affect parts of the sector where energy costs and energy-dependent costs are a large proportion of total costs.

Regional communities and industries are likely to be more vulnerable to these impacts than urban centres, due to their reliance on agriculture and other natural resource-based industries, and low levels of infrastructure stock.

Regional communities, in particular farming regions, have already been subject to structural change to a much greater extent than metropolitan centres in recent history (Productivity Commission 1998).

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And Garnaut’s only response to helping farmers & rural people:

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“These are issues for policy in the longer-term future”

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In other words Rural & Regional Australia is once again treated as expendable by policy makers. From a Rural perspective the whole report is grim - I’ll write more about that in another post later this evening.

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