Framing Actions Around Co-Benefits for Carbon Mitigation In

Land Use Policy 85 (2019) 230–238 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Land Use Policy journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/landusepol Missed opportunity? Framing actions around co-benefits for carbon mitigation in Australian agriculture T ⁎ Aysha Fleminga, , Cara Stitzleinb, Emma Jakkua, Simon Fielkea a CSIRO Land and Water, Adaptive Urban and Social Systems, Australia b CSIRO Data 61, Hobart, Tasmania, 7005, Australia ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT Keywords: Agriculture around the world is one of the industries most affected by, and faced with responsibility to mitigate, Carbon sequestration climate change. Through improvements in technology and efficiency as well as changes to land use management, Carbon farming agriculture can make an important contribution to meeting global commitments such as the Paris agreement or fi Co-bene ts the Sustainable Development Goals. Yet international carbon markets have not resulted in sufficiently high Farmer values financial returns to motivate the full potential of land sector changes in Australia and globally. Through analysis Farmer motivations of 110 interviews with 55 farmers, 43 advisors and 12 stakeholders in the land sector we identify that the framing of ‘carbon-farming’ in agriculture as a financial opportunity creates a barrier to how farmers perceive participation in carbon markets. As a result of this finding, this paper argues that framing the opportunities with increased attention to co-benefits and broader economic incentives in addition to potential financial opportunities could re-invigorate how carbon farming is perceived and adopted. 1. Introduction have chosen to encourage carbon sequestration primarily through financial motivations. The Australian Carbon Farming Initiative Agriculture is the third highest greenhouse gas emitter in Australia (2011–2015) which became the Emissions Reduction Fund (2015-cur- and is responsible for approximately a quarter of greenhouse gas rent) has seen some financial rewards returned to larger scale projects emissions globally (Smith, 2018; Bustamante et al., 2014). At the same established predominantly in avoided deforestation, reforestation and time, agriculture has more potential for greenhouse gas mitigation than savanna burning methodologies. Smaller scale projects are less likely to other sectors, primarily through landscape management (Smith, 2018), see worthwhile financial return from participating in emissions reduc- and improving on-farm practices, such as through innovations in tion, possibly due to the significant administrative (auditing) costs and technology and production strategies (Maraseni et al., 2018; Herrero project restrictions. et al., 2016). Australia is a signatory to the Sustainable Development Expectations that market demand would be sufficient to drive an Goals (SDGs) and to the Paris Agreement, which both require sig- increasing price for carbon and catalyse further participation by the nificant reductions of greenhouse gas emissions. The SDGs also require land sector in carbon programmes have so far not been realised, with more general and wide-ranging improvements and broader interpreta- the price currently fluctuating around $13 per Australian Carbon Credit tions of sustainability (Stafford-Smith et al., 2017) which will mean the Unit (http://www.cleanenergyregulator.gov.au/ERF/Auctions-results/ agriculture sector cannot avoid making significant changes. june-2018). The high transaction costs of administration to participate Financial arguments are often seen as compelling ways to motivate in carbon farming programmes may be a significant barrier for mid- change and perceptions persist that ‘it is hard to be green when you are range and smaller land owners (Sanderson and Reeson, 2019). Simi- in the red’, or that financial stability comes first, rather than in tandem larly, revegetation schemes in Australia have to date had little impact, with, or driven by, environmental or social considerations (i.e. broader partly because the financial incentives are too low (Maraseni and economic incentives). Natural disasters and drought are examples Cockfield, 2015). Government extension and outreach programs de- where environmental and social considerations become the priority signed to raise awareness about the potential and importance of carbon issue, but these events are often regarded as temporary and so do not farming have largely resulted in farmers deciding it is not financially create permanent shifts in behaviour. In line with the financial ap- viable (McKenzie 2018). Due to generally weak (and lack of bipartisan) proach, government led schemes in Australia and around the world political support (Maraseni and Reardon-Smith, 2019), and the low ⁎ Corresponding author. E-mail address: aysha.fl[email protected] (A. Fleming). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2019.03.050 Received 23 January 2019; Received in revised form 13 March 2019; Accepted 29 March 2019 0264-8377/ © 2019 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/BY/4.0/). A. Fleming, et al. Land Use Policy 85 (2019) 230–238 price of carbon there has been a visible loss in momentum of carbon carbon and farming (Ojha et al., 2019; Fleming and Vanclay, 2010). To farming as a priority issue for industries, evidenced by the lack of better align with the framing used by farmers’ in their decision making, carbon farming on industry conference agendas. With many of the the carbon farming narrative needs to shift to a wider interpretation of projects with lower transaction costs already registered, the subsequent responsible farming and the range of co-benefits available. Further- reductions in carbon emissions required to achieve Australia’s part of more, this may be a useful way for policy to recognise and value international agreements need a significant increase in the number of farmers for the multiple services they offer (or could offer) through farmers participating in carbon sequestration (Lamb et al., 2016). It their management of the land. appears that conventional financial arguments are inadequate to mo- Social learning is a particularly successful way to encourage uptake tivate sufficient interest or participation. In this paper we understand of change, by seeing what others are doing and what is working well financial arguments to include the dollar figure that may directly result (Gray et al., 2009). If farmer talk is that those farmers ‘at the top’ aren’t from an activity whereas economic return includes more indirect fi- seeing the reward for carbon sequestration (financially), or that it re- nancial returns, such as productivity benefits, or environmental bene- quires a large scale operation, then others may be less motivated to fits. participate. In addition, the gap in methodologies tailored to smaller This paper aims to examine how action for climate mitigation on scale farmers has created some groups, perceived as ‘fringe’ or ‘green’ farms might be facilitated outside of financial arguments and promote farmers which potentially further reduces the salience and credibility of ‘more resilient, economically viable and sustainable land use practices the message of carbon farming for the more mainstream. Against the on a landscape level’ (Maraseni and Mitchell 2016 p.139). There is background of competing legitimacy claims it may be difficult to en- evidence of farms responding to the broader economic returns and re- gage farmers in the narrative of co-benefits first, financial return later. duced carbon footprints outside of the national programme (Torabi Nevertheless, to not engage farmers in discussion of co-benefits accrues et al., 2016). Globally, changes to routine fertiliser application (Zhu an opportunity cost for individual farmers, as well as the agricultural et al., 2018), converting traditional cropping regimes (Cai et al., 2018), sector combined and even the nation as a whole, which will only in- manure processing (Purdy et al., 2018), and including traditional crop crease further the longer action is delayed (Garnaut, 2011). Carbon varieties (Carranza-Gallego et al., 2018) are some of the changes being credits are generated over time - and over the course of many growing made in the absence of official project participation. In Australia, there seasons - so efforts need to be planned and implemented in advance and have also been some positive responses to biodiverse carbon plantings require a long(er) term commitment than most other on-farm produc- driven by the value of co-benefits. These trends suggest that producers tion methods. The long term commitment also reduces farmer flexibility are capable of, and interested in, implementing the same sort of prac- and freedom but can motivate beneficial longer term whole of farm tices as methods advertised by the national programme and there is planning including succession planning. some motivation by broader economic incentives. This paper argues that co-benefits promote desirable on-farm be- The co-benefits – defined as the positive benefits related to the re- haviours, and should be formally integrated into opportunities for duction of greenhouse gases (IPCC, 2007) – of improving and main- carbon market participation. More consideration of co-benefits is useful taining carbon in farms are well documented in the agricultural lit- for both sides of the market: supply (providing more motivation to erature, both in agronomic terms (Stokes and Howden, 2010) and from produce carbon and participate in the market) and demand (requires system-wide and policy

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