22 September 2025. Shane McCarthy, AgForce General President.
The federal government released its National Climate Risk Assessment and 2035 climate target this week and it presented a largely gloomy picture.
It's fair to says the agriculture sector has greeted this with mixed feelings across the board.
The report warns primary producers to expect varied rainfall, warmer temperatures and possible water insecurity in the years to come. Farmers have managed the challenges of variable rainfall and water insecurity for generations.
While there's no doubt that reducing emissions offers investment opportunities for some farmers, there's genuine concern that the agriculture sector is unfairly expected to bear the burden of ensuring the 2035 climate targets are met.
I would like to see agriculture better recognised for playing a big role in creating the solution to climate challenges.
To me it seems that all too often all government and lobby groups want to talk about is what agriculture emits. They don't want to talk about what we actually sequester as well.
Agriculture manages over 50% of the land mass in Australia. And we've got the potential to sequester a lot of carbon. So we've got the potential to be the answer to climate challenges, definitely not part of the problem.
The climate is changing in ways unseen for generations, but our ability to adapt has never been stronger.
So what we need is not so much talk about restrictions and what we can and can't do, but instead - emphasise the need to adapt quickly if we are to be able to continue to produce food and fibre to the standard that we already produce it - that is some of the best in the world.
We've got the ability through grazing certain ways and managing land types to sequester massive amounts of carbon. Crops like sugar cane are massive sequesters of carbon. So if we look at it that way - the crops that we grow, the animals that we raise, all sequester carbon.
A sheep's wool contains carbon from the plants it grazes on, and because the fleece grows back each year, it's part of a natural, renewable cycle of carbon storage.
So there's a lot in agriculture that is able to sequester carbon, that we don't hear enough about. And that becomes a distraction from the important infrastructure work that needs to be done such as water infrastructure that needs to be built. We live on the driest nation on earth and so much of our water just runs out to sea.
Let's hold some of that water back to grow the food and fibre the expanding population in Australia needs.
We already manage our land to an environmental standard because we've got standards that we have to uphold, and many of us have been on the land for generations.
The best advice I can give to government is talk to industry, talk to Ag and take them along for the conversation and involve them early in the process because these guys know their land better than anybody else and how to manage it.
