The Carbon Farming Outreach Program, worth more than $1.8 million in Gap Analysis grants, will be available to research and development corporations (RDCs).
The program aims to find where commodity-specific information on emissions reduction and carbon farming is lacking, and to find the best ways to get this information to producers.
The grants are open by invitation to 15 RDCs.
Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry deputy secretary for policy Matt Lowe said the grants had been developed following consultation on the Agriculture and Land Sector Plan.
“From our conversations with farmers, a lot of people were telling us they wanted more information on how to reduce emissions, particularly across different commodities,” Mr Lowe said.
“There is no one way to reduce emissions, and what works on a cattle property isn’t necessarily going to work in horticulture or broadacre cropping.”
The best ways to provide this information to producers may include reference to
The program is aimed to determine the availability and suitability of carbon calculators; however the outcomes of this grant round do not input directly into existing calculators.
“What these grants will do is find where that industry-specific knowledge is missing, so that appropriate information can be developed in an appropriate format and included in a knowledge bank that farmers can easily access,” Mr Lowe said.
“Our farmers are at the forefront of the impacts of climate change; they openly acknowledge that the sector has a role to play in reducing emissions and have been working towards sustainable farming for decades.”
For more information, visit https://www.grants.gov.au
