Agriculture accounts for approximately 17.4% of Australia's national greenhouse gas emissions, of which around 68% is attributable to enteric fermentation (DCCEEW 2022). In line with national and global climate commitments, the pastoral industry will play a significant role in helping to reduce emissions, whilst also acting as a major sink for carbon storage in vegetation and soils. The ability for pastoralists to be able to calculate, demonstrate and manage their enterprise based on their carbon footprint is becoming important to maintain social license and market access. Enterprises with a low carbon position may also be presented with opportunities around value-adding and business diversification. When it comes to on-farm emissions reductions or carbon sequestration, Australian pastoralists express concern and confusion, and are unsure what actions to take or who to trust for independent information, thereby stalling adoption. Carbon EDGE, a new training program for the red meat industry, was born out of the need to scale up industry capacity, responding to these adoption challenges. The process involved the co-design of a two-day workshop with supporting resources by a Working Group of livestock producers, service providers, supply chain representatives and researchers. Six pilot workshops and two train-the-trainer sessions were delivered in different regions to seek feedback from over 100 industry participants representing 2.9 million ha under management. This included a specific focus on ensuring the program was relevant for rangeland environments. Covering key terminology and concepts; supply chain and policy drivers; environmental markets; carbon accounting and on-farm interventions, the program aims to provide participants with information to make confident decisions and form an action plan aligned to their own production system and business goals. The success of the program was reflected in satisfaction scores averaging 8.5/10. The need for continued extension in this space was reflected in the project outcomes, with participant confidence levels sitting between 3-3.5 out of 5, and over 90% of attendees indicating their intent to take action following the workshop.
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