Carbon Tax Will Hurt Australian Agriculture

Posted by Matt Hopkins|29 July 2008

Australian food production and exports – already suffering from the country’s prolonged drought, which started in 2002 – could be cut even further when carbon trading starts from mid-2010, said Australia’s biggest farmers’ group. The price of carbon will be added to the already severe price increases for fuel. "It’s potentially going to be a very big challenge for the government to introduce a (carbon trading) scheme into Australia that maintains production," said Jock Laurie, president of the New South Wales Farmers Association. "That’s a critical thing that we maintain food production, that we don’t have to reduce food production to meet the criteria of the program."

"Any more cost imposed on the industry could have enormous impact, especially if you’ve got to reduce production at the same time," said Laurie. The Australian government would negotiate internationally to recognize the sequestration of carbon by Australian farmers, to match the Australian and international carbon trading systems.

"It’s in the front row of our negotiations to get the international rules to catch up with that," Agriculture Minister Tony Burke said.

Agriculture accounts for 15.6%of Australia’s carbon emissions, and will become part of the carbon trading system from 2015, according to a government blueprint of the scheme due to go before parliament in early 2009, Reuters reports.

While presently negotiating details of the system with key industrial players, the government has said it will delay deciding on the details of an emissions scheme for agriculture until 2013.