[Music] To be able to do the environmental works we've been able to do we need to have
good market signals that meant that we're going to get rewarded for what we've done
we're now seeing a whole bunch of markets opening up to us particularly on the fibre
side at the moment and with you know serious premiums over the market [Music]
My name's Mark Wootton we farm at Jigsaw Farms which is in southwest Victoria, just north
of Hamilton. We're a high input high output operation we reach carbon neutrality in 2011
predominantly through having trees. We started here in 1996 and with a pretty blank landscape
we're keen to improving from a production point of view our lambing percentages and
our calving percentages and we realized but by doing shelter belts we could help that
by taking out the worst of the weather risk we also at the same time decided that we would wanted
to move into a perennial pasture-based system and we also wanted to make sure that we utilized the
rainfall that matched the needs of the animals. We've doubled our carrying capacity in that time
we've at the same time reached carbon neutrality by having trees in place. We've also
done extensive work on laneway efficiency so we've dropped the amount of labour we need
and we've also increased our deep water storage which allows us to ride through
any potential to do with long dries or droughts and we've also put in a fully reticulated water
systems but that's taken 25 years of evolution to get there it wasn't done overnight.
The carbon neutrality story is what's threefold really, one is as you can change the animal
behaviour so it's more efficient so by having higher fecundity levels i.e more
lambs or calves on the ground you have only one maternal unit producing that so you naturally
your carbon footprint drops. Your economics also improved because you've got more lambs and more
calves to sell. On a practical level there's a limit to what we can do to change that ruminant
behavior of an animal at this stage and so the way we do it is is by planting uh trees on farm which
sequests the equivalent of the emissions that the livestock produce. There's about 670 hectares of
of trees we've planted and half of those are to agroforestry or high value saw logs and half of
them to permanent revegetation. And the soil carbon is another add-on there because you get
good soil carbon you get high productivity. The other aside with the whole thing to do with it is
is the co-benefits you know like if we analyze any one thing we did on its sole on one factor i.e
carbon or B shelter or C biodiversity gains none of them stack up on their own they only stack up
when you do them in combination and that's where the co- benefits are really significant.
In terms of the calculation I mean it was a learning exercise i you know I'm not suggesting
we we had this grand plan at the beginning for someone entering into the space now the tools are
immense but my advice would be is to go get one of those MLA or Melbourne University greenhouse
gas calculators, do a hypothetical on your farm plan work out your dream of where you want your
if you're going to do trees offset what are you going to do, if it's soil carbon how are you going
to change your practice are you going to have more stubble, are you going to have ground cover there,
are you going to do more rotations just best practice farming and grazing management and
and i would argue that most best practice farmers they tend to be really good environmental farmers
as well. And the other beauty of us is there's no external offsets on this this is all on farm
and so it's it's a closed loop in terms of what we do. My advice to people is is you want to be
really careful about selling your carbon credits to third party because there might be a big enough
premium on the product you're selling in the future that you want to keep them for yourself.
In terms of animal welfare practices we have gone through a number of changes in that 25 year. We
we ceased mulesing we went through freeze branding as an interim step
and we've been breeding for a planer bodied low fly risk sheep but that's actually been really
rewarding. I mean we're really lucky with the people on the farm that we employ they feel a
sense of pride that we're actually changing what we do for the betterment of both animal welfare
but also in the in ease of management. The risk for us is if you're taking leaps of
faith we wouldn't do it it's a considered risk if you know before we were comfortable for example
ceasing mulesing we needed to be comfortable that we had a sheep that could deal with a fly wave
and we also had to be happy that we we understand the technologies because we've got you know at
certain times a year with lambs we'd have forty thousand ewes and lambs on the on the farm we had
to be able to process large volume very quickly so it's a constant learning exercise. [Music]
We're now seeing a whole bunch of markets opening up to us particularly on the fibre side at the
moment with the Responsible Wool Standard and using ZQ and some of these branding opportunities
who are looking for the environmental or the carbon neutral story that we have and we're in
that space now. We're, we're increasing increasing amount of that clip is going that way and with you
know serious premiums over the market and that's also to do with the animal welfare things we do.
In terms of the beef market and the lamb market that's an evolving market it's still very mature
but it's really promising we're having lots of conversations now with a range of parties and
talking about entering into that space for either a low carbon intensive product or a zero carbon
product and so we're having those conversations at the moment as well. The markets premiums that
we can get um come with um you know a serious commitment to be uh have integrity in your system
and through that you need to have traceability we do that through a range of accreditation schemes.
From a a meat point of view you have to get your carbon neutrality signed off by third parties
and there's a number of ways of doing that um but you have to be able to um document and prove that
you're doing what you say you're doing um and and with that will become markets opening up.
i think producers should be prepared to take risks that do it at scale which is
manageable for the size of your business. So you have to understand your risk you have to
understand your risk appetite and you have to understand you know what you can do financially.
The strangest things happen like we're standing in this plantation now and i had someone ring me
yesterday who wants to forward lock all our spotted gun into a contract for 2030 because
native forests have been shut down in Victoria. yYu know that was not part of our plan
but we've at least got that choice now. We've taken risk and we've gone forward.
[Music] you