The Federal Government Department of Agriculture, Water and Environment has provided $4m in funding to the National Farmers’ Federation to develop and trial the Scheme. Funding has been made available through the $34m Agriculture Stewardship Package.
The package recognises that farmers, as stewards of the environment and as land managers are providing benefits to the wider community. Many small and medium sized farmers would like to do more, and the Australian Government is taking the lead to support further stewardship activities by farmers.
Project Details
The project will run from December 2019 until mid-2022 and will be delivered in 3 Phases:
- Phase 1 will be completed before the end of July 2020 and will be a stocktake existing Australian Agriculture sector BMPs/Sustainability frameworks and a high-level international search for comparative schemes. This will allow Industry and Government to assess areas of commonality across schemes and make recommendations about next steps.
The Australia Farm Institute has been contracted to deliver the Phase 1 report.
- Phase 2 will be completed by the end of June 2021 and will involve the development of a certification/verification scheme as well as detailed consultation across a number of commodities and geographic regions.
- Phase 3 will be completed by mid-2022 and will be an assessment of readiness by farmers to participate in such a scheme, and a small trial of the certification/verification system.
The overall objectives identified for the Australian Farm Biodiversity Certification Scheme Trial include:
- Integrate productivity, sustainability and biodiversity on Australian farms to provide lasting benefits to farmers and the community.
- Ensure Australian farmers can showcase best practice sustainability/biodiversity management of natural resources – and ensure these actions are recognisable by the community and other farmers.
Forums
Registration is now open for Industry and Stakeholder forums. After the initial desk review of international and domestic options, the resulting catalogue of schemes will be presented to stakeholders for feedback via open group to assist in determining desirable and non-desirable elements of relevant schemes in relation to their applicability to Australian agriculture.
10 forums and 2 online webinars will be held. Registration is free however RSVP is required. The relevant to RGA members is the NSW Riverina forum. At the time of writing very few places remained available. The Environmental Sustainability Committee members have been enrolled to participate.
Forums will run from 9am – 1pm local time:
NSW Riverina – 30/04/2020
Additional webinars will be scheduled to substitute for COVID-19 disruptions.
The project will consult with an agricultural industry Stakeholder Reference Group, which comprises of representatives from the following organisations:
- Grain Growers Limited
- CANEGROWERS
- Sheep Producers Australia
- Cotton Australia
- Cattle Council of Australia
- Australian Farmers for Climate Action
- Ricegrowers’ Association of Australia
- AgForce Queensland Farmers Limited
- Victorian Farmers Federation
- NSW Farmers’ Association
- NRM Regions
For more information please see https://nff.org.au/programs/australian-farm-biodiversity-certification-scheme-trial/