Agriculture on back foot on emissions trading

Agriculture is heavily on the back foot as it tries to deal with the immediacy of the Rudd Government's move towards a national emissions trading scheme (ETS).

Back in 2002, Australia's coal industry was badgering for government funding to help it address greenhouse emissions; in 2006, it received $50 million in Federal funds for a low-emissions project, and another $125m that was later withheld because of project problems.

The agriculture industry is only just starting down the same path.

With the initial draft of Australia's ETS on a deadline for early 2009, the farming sector has little time to decide where it will stand in the scheme, and scant information to inform the decisions it must make.

"We are very underequipped, even to analyse the decisions that will potentially have to be made," said Mick Keogh, executive director of the Australian Farm Institute.

"There is little work done by bodies like ABARE that can help us, and while the scientific community is starting to gain momentum, we're a long way from being able to use whatever research is produced."