Murray Watt addressing the sustainability summit.

WHILE the Federal Government has been keen to ramp up consultation with the agricultural industry on climate change, a meeting this week ducked one of the cattle industry’s main policies.

Federal agriculture minister Murray Watt yesterday held a sustainability summit in Toowoomba to discuss the Government’s “ag and net zero plan” and the principles underpinning it – being close collaboration with the agricultural sector, prioritising food security, and making sure farmland is not a carbon dump for other sectors.

Held in the beef producing heartland of the Darling Downs, the absence of legislated beef industry lobby groups from the program was noticeable – particularly Cattle Australia.

While the panels heard from beef producers and Meat & Livestock Australia, CA has clearly been engaging on climate policy and has a legislated role to represent grassfed cattle producers, regardless of whether they are members.

Grassfed cattle producers appear to be facing the brunt of climate change policy, with vegetation management, soil and methane emissions all in focus.

Asked why CA was not on the program or involved in the minister’s press conference, Minister Watt said he could not fit everyone in.

“Every peak body in the country is here today, we can’t have 25 people in a press conference, what we have is a couple of representative farmers,” Mr Watt said.

“I meet with Cattle Australia on a regular basis and have already applauded the work they are doing.”

Who is setting agricultural policy?

Other peak industry groups were involved in the program, including Sheep Producers Australia and Grain Growers. It also heard from a range of different perspectives – including an Indigenous consultant and farmer, an NRM officer and Nuffield Scholar, AgriFutures Australia and the head of the net zero emissions CRC.

The Government was keen to feature Farmers for Climate Action, quoting them on the press release leading up the event and putting the chief executive officer Natalie Collard on a panel discussion.

FCA claims to be one of the country’s biggest agricultural lobby groups, with Ms Collard starting off her speech by saying the group represents 8200 farmers – which would make it bigger than a lot of the peak bodies and state farm organisations. It also received $1.5m in donations last year.

Comparisons between membership figures do not necessarily compare like for like – ie AgForce claims 5500 members but each member pays fees based on their gross value of production (GVP) and which can range anywhere from hundreds to thousands of dollars per farmer annually. FCA membership is free.

Beef Central highlighted a lack rigour behind FCA’s claimed membership earlier this year, who unlike the SFOs and peak bodies, doesn’t ask for ABNs or PIC numbers to verify if the members are a primary producer. The organisation has doubled down on the claim since the original article, consistently featuring it in press releases and public appearances.

Given the organisation is using the figure to claim it is representing more producers than other farm lobby groups and is featuring heavily in important discussions about the future of the industry, Beef Central asked if it has updated its practices to apply the same level of rigour as the other farm lobby groups and peak bodies.

While no ABNs, PICs or measures of the like were mentioned, Ms Collard said the organisation does routine checks on its members.

“FCA regularly engages with members and updates information such as commodity and farm size during routine updates and removes people from the membership who have not engaged for some time,” she said.

“A group of 30 farmers created Farmers for Climate Action in 2015 because their views on climate were not being represented by traditional ag groups. Offering free membership means many FCA members can then retain their membership of traditional ag groups and work with both groups to make sure their views on climate are represented.

“FCA was pleased to appear among a number of representative organisations invited to contribute to the inaugural Sustainable Agriculture Summit, convened by Government. We took this opportunity to meet with our members on the ground and visited a members’ farm in Queensland.”

What about the policy?

Since forming in 2022, Cattle Australia has had a clear focus on climate policy, pushing the Government to use reporting metrics that better reflect the short-lived nature of livestock methane and developing a “land management commitment” for incoming deforestation policy.

On methane, CA has been leaning heavily on CSIRO research that found the cattle industry could realistically be climate neutral (not contributing to new global warming) by 2026. Similar findings have been made across the world, including from the University of Oxford and the University of California Davis.

Red meat industry representative groups appear to be adopting the CA perspectives, with many of them pushing for climate neutral recognition in the written submissions to the ag and net zero plan.

But the climate neutral discussion barely featured in this week’s program – with the exception of a comment made from the floor by Central Qld producer CA deputy chair Adam Coffey.

FCA’s written submission to the net zero plan does not specifically mention climate neutral or carbon neutral. It calls for more research into enteric methane emissions and more funding to help producers reduce methane emissions.

Asked where the Government stands on the measurement of methane emissions, energy and climate change minister Chris Bowen said he will have more to say on the matter soon.

“Methane is a key matter for agriculture and it will be a key matter in our agriculture and land sector plan,” Mr Bowen said.

“I will be having more to say on response to the Climate Change Authority’s advice to me on that in the coming weeks, but whatever I announce will be in line with UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change) rules.”