Australian grain growers know their operations inside out; from property boundaries to fertilisers and pesticides applied, right through to the projected hours in-cab during harvest.

Yet the growing interest in emissions and emissions reporting has caused a knowledge gap that businesses such as Planfarm TerraWise are addressing, with the help of AIA’s Environmental Accounting Platform.

TerraWise is the dedicated carbon division of Planfarm, supporting grain, livestock and horticultural growers across the Western Australian wheatbelt and throughout eastern states.

TerraWise Manager Danielle Gale says that knowing your emissions intensity number doesn’t have to be daunting, and the exercise of record keeping is not only best practice but empowers growers to make informed business decisions.

“As the supply chain moves toward more sustainable and transparent procurement reporting it’s important that growers are prepared with the information necessary to meet these requests,” Dr Gale said.

“If they’re not doing it to remain competitive in market, they should be considering it for their own business resilience.”

Currently, TerraWise has more than 50 clients engaged in either carbon accounting or carbon projects, supported by their free integration with Agricultural Innovation Australia’s Environmental Accounting Platform (EAP).

“As independent advisors it’s our job to demonstrate the value of data for knowledge-building and enhancing what can be achieved on-farm, but we need the systems and software to generate data that is trusted and consistently reliable.

“The EAP isn’t about emissions alone, it feeds into a bigger whole-farm picture that clients need to be aware of.

“What the EAP integration has provided us is the opportunity for tailored reporting, designed to address the operational needs of our clients rather than relying on templated reports that don’t capture the reality of their day-to-day operations,” Dr Gale said.

The EAP Application Programming Interface (API) embedded in the TerraWise service offering supports carbon accounting for grain growers and mixed-enterprise operations.

“There continues to be a lot of noise out there about the merit of carbon accounting and carbon projects. In particular, the relevance of producer participation on-farm.”

“We’re seeing more farmers recognising the value and impact of their data on the outcome of their production, particularly those exploring carbon projects.

“Our conversations are centring around emissions as a whole of business approach, which is ultimately driving interest and investment into carbon accounting.

“Carbon accounting should be a holistic business management priority, and increasingly more producers are embracing this approach.

“For farmers who have multiple crops and different requirements to treat, manage, and grow each specific crop, the detail the EAP integration provides means that there is no second guessing,” Dr Gale said.

The EAP was made possible by the investment of 10 RDCS, including the Grains Research and Development Corporation.

Free access to AIA’s API is supported by the Australian Government through funding from the Improving Consistency of On-Farm Emissions Estimates Program.

More information about the EAP and the free API, visit aiaeap.com