This past March marked four years of Landcare Agriculture and Ruminati working together, and if you’ve been watching the emissions reporting space over that time, you’ll know how much has changed. Supply chains are asking more questions, banks are paying closer attention, and a new federal standard is due in July that will shift the goalposts again. For producers and the advisors supporting them, the pressure to get across this is real, and it’s not going away.
That’s exactly why these Train the Trainer (TtT) sessions exist. Rather than trying to reach every producer directly, Landcare Ag and Ruminati bring together the facilitators, group leaders and advisors who are already out there working with farming communities and get them genuinely confident with the Ruminati platform so they can support their people when the questions start coming.
In March, that meant a Zoom room of people from across Australia including Dawson Creek Catchment Authority (QLD), Holbrook Landcare (NSW), and RegenWA (WA), led by Will Onus from Ruminati (a cattle producer himself, which definitely matters when the conversation gets technical). Will walked through the platform from the ground up, including the service provider view that lets advisors set up and support client accounts directly, taking a lot of the load off producers who are already stretched.
The questions that came up are probably the same ones you’ve been sitting with.
- What does the platform do with existing trees and remnant vegetation on the property? Under current frameworks, not much, but the new July standard starts to address that.
- Do regenerative practices or organic inputs count for anything? Producers who’ve moved away from synthetic fertilisers don’t have to report those inputs at all, which tends to show up as a better emissions intensity number- so the work many are already doing is quietly working in their favour.
- And does getting a report verified have to cost a fortune? Not when the data is already in a standardised format. Audits that run to tens of thousands of dollars elsewhere have come in at a fraction of that cost through the platform (they can even be audited by your personal accountant!)
As Landcare Agriculture’s Ang Hammond put it at the end of the session:
“We used to think EBVs were a tricky thing to calculate. We used to think that understanding soil health was a tricky thing. It’s all everyday work now. That’s what emissions and natural capital reporting is going to become too, once we just make it clear for everyone in the process.”
Since the session, Holbrook Landcare has registered as a Ruminati service provider, meaning they can now support producers in their region with emissions reporting through the platform. Several other groups and advisors are working through the same process, and a follow-up session focused on the service provider pathway is in the works.
If any of this is relevant to where you’re at- whether you’re a producer wanting to get your head around what emissions reporting means for your business, or a Landcare group, advisor or consultant thinking about how to better support your community, get in touch with Merri at [email protected] to register your interest for the next webinar.