AUTRALIAN farmers cannot run and hide from a looming emissions trading scheme, says DAVID CROMBIE

No one wants a Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, but the reality is both sides of federal politics have committed to some form of emissions trading scheme to control greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere.

As a result, agriculture needs to have a key stake in the negotiations.

For 18 months, the National Farmers' Federation, with the unanimous backing of its members, has demonstrated and sold the reality that the CPRS based on Kyoto rules does not work for agriculture.

In fact, in its current form, it will decimate our sector and send global demand to other countries, ironically with higher carbon footprints than ours.

We bought the sector time with the Government accepting our proposition that it is too hard to monitor or measure agricultural emission across 140,000 farms, hence the Government's exclusion of agriculture until more work can be done, with a decision made in 2013 for potential inclusion in 2015.

However, mid-year, Australia's major trading partners ruled their farm sectors out of their cap and trade systems, changing the international landscape and rendering the CPRS untenable for agriculture.

The NFF then pushed for the permanent exclusion of direct farm emission from the CPRS.

We have sought that decision sooner not later so our farmers will have the same certainty as farmers excluded in the US, UK, EU, Japan, Canada and others.

But simple exclusion would deal farmers out of the potential gains to be made in capturing and storing carbon in agricultural systems, something our farmers are very good at.

If the Government is serious about reducing carbon pollution, and we know the CPRS is flawed for agriculture, then alternative measures, like an offsets program, are essential.

Given the increasingly integrated nature of the supply chain in Australia, we have also sought that processors get some compensation from the costs of the CPRS, on the basis that higher costs for them will be passed back to farmers who are price takers.

Finally, we need to do something about the Kyoto rules that are flawed as far as agriculture is concerned.

In their current form they do not account for carbon sequestration and storage, which we know we can do.

We cannot afford to be hamstrung by them.

Of course, indirect costs will still go up. They are going to go up for every sector in the economy and be passed on to every household in the country.

We are trying to minimise the cost but to say we can get out of all costs if there is a CPRS would be disingenuous.

If Australia is to have a CPRS, then it is our job to make sure farmers' interests are protected. Exclusion from the cap, while having access to measures like opt-in credits and compensating for supply chain impacts, would be a sensible outcome.

We are now at the pointy end of negotiations and the political dynamics is intensifying.

We took our amendments to the Government months ago.

We engaged in negotiations accordingly.

However, while getting an understanding ear, the Government refused to make the concessions upfront.

The NFF subsequently took our amendments to the Coalition, who adopted our imperatives as their policy platform. This now forms the basis for negotiations between the Coalition and Government over the CPRS legislation.

The criticism of NFF from the National Party is unfortunate but not important.

My only concern is dealing with the legislation and protecting the interests of agriculture.

I will leave it to others to understand why the NFF is being critisied by a Coalition partner for supporting Coalition amendments to the CPRS.

The bottom line is that if there is to be an ETS then the NFF's changes would put Australian farmers in the driver's seat as much as possible, with control over their own destinies and new carbon-friendly opportunities to be capitalised.