Queensland horticulture body Growcom, says it intends to assess opportunities for Australian fruit and vegetable growers to generate credits under the Australian Government’s Carbon Farming Initiative (CFI) scheme.

The scheme allows landowners to generate carbon credits, and ultimately income streams, by conducting projects that reduce emissions or sequester carbon in the environment.

Growcom’s David Putland said the scheme involved around a set of ‘approved methodologies’ that determined exactly what farmers can do to generate credits and how many credits can be generated from these activities. However, the methodologies relevant to horticulture require research.

Mr Putland said, “Intensive industries like horticulture use relatively small areas of land and this issue was not considered fully during the development of the CFI legislation and regulations.”

As well as developing new methodologies to underpin horticultural-based CFI projects, Growcom’s investigation will:

• examine the extent of emissions abatement and carbon sequestration

• estimate the realistic income potential from activities in the CFI

• investigate the implications of the CFI for land use changes, horticultural productivity and food security.

The Carbon Farming Initiative scheme is to be funded by industry levies with matched government contributions provided through Horticulture Australia Limited.

The scheme also opens significant opportunities for eco marketing claims and environmental claims for participants.

Forthcoming Federal FoodLegal intensive workshops in Sydney (13th February 2012) and Melbourne (20th February 2012)

The Australian food industry’s specialist law firm FoodLegal will be conducting intensive workshops on eco marketing and environment related claims in food marketing. Issues such as marketing claims that refer to carbon footprints and carbon credits will also be addressed the course of the workshops.

The courses are to be held in Sydney on 13th February 2012 and in Melbourne on Monday 20 February 2012. For more details click here.