Carbon scheme means pain and gain for agriculture

The Federal Government has decided agriculture will not have to pay for its carbon emissions until at least 2015, under the carbon emissions trading scheme announced by the Climate Change Minister, Penny Wong.

It's going to decide in 2013 whether the problems of getting thousands of farms to count their emissions, and the carbon they're storing on their properties in soil and trees, have been overcome in time for agriculture to join the scheme two years later.

The Government is going to keep 10 per cent of the permits (to emit greenhouse gas at no cost) for agriculture until it comes into the scheme. However, as agriculture creates 16 per cent of emissions, the industry is clearly going to have to reduce its emissions or find offsets like planting trees on properties.

At this stage, the Government doesn't know whether or how carbon stored on farms in soil could be included.

Before farmers come into the scheme, they will be able to sell tree plantings as carbon offsets to other polluting sectors.

Farmers and forestry operations which plant trees will be able to join the scheme to sell offsets on a voluntary basis, but the logging industry is also being left out for the moment.