Status: Completed

Research provider – name & contact details
Peter Deuter, Queensland Primary Industries and Fisheries, 07 5466 2233, peter.deuter@deedi.qld.gov.au 

Start & finish dates for project
30 July 2008 – 31 January 2009

What was the project?

A short-term project implemented to better define the industry needs and scientific information available for the development of a carbon footprinting tool for the vegetable industry. A set of recommendations for investment in this area were to be developed within the project timeframe and future actions to be agreed with vegetable industry early 2009.

Why did we do it?

In mid-2008 the Australian Vegetable industry was interested in implementing a project that will identify its carbon footprint.  However prior to commencing the development of a new carbon footprinting tool, there was a need to take stock of tools already available; determine the benefit of each tool to the industry; and identify who will use the tool once developed as well as better understand the background and drivers of carbon footprinting.

This project allowed for a strategic approach to the area of carbon footprints within the vegetable industry and helped informed the Houston’s Farm project and the current vegetable carbon footprint project.

How did we do it?

Over 6 months this project commissioned six discussion papers, hosted a workshop with industry and climate researchers then developed recommendations for the future investment of vegetable levy funds into the area of carbon footprinting for the Australian vegetable industry.

Queensland Department of Primary Industries and Forestry (QDPI&F) were subcontracted to organise the workshop and write up the workshop outcomes.

Outcomes:

During the 6 months, July-December 2008, the project commissioned six discussion papers, hosted a workshop with industry and climate researchers then developed recommendations for the future investment of vegetable levy funds into the area of carbon footprinting for the Australian vegetable industry.

The vegetable industry carbon foot printing discussion papers, released in October 2008, answered the below questions for industry:

1. What is a carbon footprint?
2. How will carbon footprinting address the issues of reduction, mitigation, emissions trading and marketing?
3. What carbon footprinting tools are currently available?
4. Is there a preliminary estimation of the carbon footprint of the Australian vegetable industry?
5. Who will use the vegetable carbon tool?
6. What are the options for mitigating greenhouse gas emissions for the Australian vegetable industry?

The vegetable carbon workshop held in October 2008, included presentations from authors of each of the six papers.

Attendees at the workshop included DPI scientists, peak industry body representatives and vegetable industry members, consultants, Vegetable Environment Committee members and Horticulture Australia Limited staff.

The focus of the workshop was to bring together industry and researchers to gain agreement on the best approach and industry requirements for the development of a carbon footprint tool for the Australian vegetable industry.

The recommendation from the workshop was that a carbon footprint tool should be developed and made available for use by the Australian vegetable industry to:

• understand the vegetable industries’ greenhouse gas (GHG) contribution, particularly  when engaging with Government, the Market and Policy makers
• understand the costs, efficiencies and trade off associated with addressing (reducing and mitigating) GHG emissions from vegetable production
• benchmark the vegetable industry - for future industry planning, for comparison with other agricultural industries and potentially for international comparison

It was further agreed that the tool should be developed from work already undertaken through another HAL project – Environmental footprint analysis of salad producer (Houston’s Farm) for development of an industry greenhouse gas calculation tool (VG07195).

This recommendation is currently being implemented by HAL and industry.

Click here to access the discussion papers and project report.