The AFI publication, “An introduction to the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme for farmers and agribusiness” sketches the Kyoto background to the CPRS and outlines how the scheme is intended to work and the likely implications for the rural sector.

AFI executive director Mick Keogh said the document was drafted because requests for explanations on aspects of the CPRS had been coming into the AFI “almost on a daily basis”.

Because the CPRS is a work in progress, the guide will only be sold in electronic form, so that it can be updated as new information emerges.

Mr Keogh suggests that everyone in the rural sector needs to have a working familiarity with the concepts behind the CPRS.

“Even though farm businesses will not be directly involved in the CPRS until at least 2015, they will experience the indirect effects of the CPRS almost immediately,” Mr Keogh said.

“The scheme will have wide reaching impacts on many parts of the economy, and especially the energy sector. Businesses in these sectors will pass the additional costs of the CPRS on to their customers, including farmers, with energy-related inputs being a major cost item for most farm businesses.”

“Processors of agricultural products will also experience impacts from the CPRS, and these impacts will also have implications for farmers.”

“The CPRS may also create new incentives for carbon-sequestering activities, or for new agricultural enterprises associated with biomass production.”

“This potentially means the creation of new sources of revenue for farm businesses - initially for activities such as planting trees - but in the longer term potentially for activities that sequester additional soil carbon, or for biomass production associated with renewable energy production.”

“A decision will also be made in 2013 about the role that farm businesses will have in the scheme, and farmers need to understand the issues associated with this decision so that workable policies can be developed.”

The document can be purchased from the AFI website,

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