You Can't Help Farmers If You Won't Tackle Climate Change, Farmer Tells Government

AFR - Ben Potter

Goondiwindi grain and cattle producer Peter Mailler says heat and inconsistent rain have made farming so tough he thinks his parents' five MW solar farm could be a better bet. Wayne Pratt

Peter Mailler, a third-generation grain and cattle grower who sent pregnant cows for slaughter this week because he can't feed them all, has a message from drought-stricken northern NSW to the Turnbull government.
It is aimed especially at the Nationals and their former leader Barnaby Joyce – against whom Mr Mailler ran in last December's byelection – as well as ex-PM Tony Abbott and other coal power-friendly Coalition figures.

First, don't pretend to champion drought-struck farmers if you're not prepared to tackle climate change – because the increasing frequency of extremely hot, dry weather is compounding the effects of drought by impairing crops' ability to use what rain they do get.

Second, don't talk about giving coal-fired power "a free kick" in the National Energy Guarantee (NEG) when a full accounting of its environmental costs will tell you not that we can't afford to close coal plants but that "we can't afford to run one tomorrow".

Peter Mailler says agriculture is working towards becoming carbon neutral but it is a challenge because it uses so much diesel fuel for machinery and transport. Wayne Pratt

Third, don't lean on high-risk, struggling industries like agriculture for deeper carbon emissions cuts when the stable, regulated electricity industry can obviously bear a larger share of the burden.
Last, the impacts of climate change on farming families threaten the survival of the Nationals' support base in rural and regional Australia, so it is time for the Coalition to dispense with "undermining science" and have an honest debate about climate change.

"In a normal year we produce enough grain to feed about 7000 families and I am flat out educating my kids," Mr Mailler tells The Australian Financial Review from his near 2420-hectare property near Goondiwindi on the NSW-Queensland border.

"I actually don't see a pathway for my kids to come back – and some of them want to." His parents built a five-megawatt solar farm on their property when they retired and he thinks this could be a better bet.

Mr Mailler says the conversation needs to be more robust. "If Turnbull and his cohort are nor prepared to diligently install some truth in the debate then what's the point?" he says.

Coal-friendly coailtion MPs Craig Kelly, Eric Abetz, Tony Abbott, Barnaby Joyce and Kevin Andrews are doing farmers no favours, Peter Mailler says. Alex Ellinghausen

First, "you cannot fix the energy problem if you are going to ignore climate ... because you are working on the wrong set of assumptions", says Mr Mailler, who trained as an agricultural scientist before returning to his parents' farm and then striking out on his own.

A 'free kick' for electricity
That makes it "disingenuous" and "hypocritical" for Mr Joyce to stand shoulder to shoulder with farmers and say "we have got to do something about the drought and not say we have got to do something about climate change".

Mr Mailler says politicians have the resources to find out the truth "yet we have politicians who spend all their time trying to undermine science and create doubt".

Moree in northern NSW sweated through an unprecedented heatwave in January and February of 2017. Supplied

"The science [of man-made global warming] is pretty unequivocal and the idea that you can subvert it and create doubt is not just irresponsible, it's diabolical," he says.

"They are talking about trying to claw back more emissions from agriculture and they are talking about giving electricity a free kick. It's ridiculous."

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg will propose a "coal-friendly" side deal for the NEG at Tuesday's party room meeting to try to win over climate change sceptics.

Critics say the NEG is already too coal-friendly because it only requires a pro rata 26 per cent carbon emissions cut from the electricity sector. CSIRO advised the government that grid emissions would have to be cut by 52 per cent to 70 per cent for Australia to meet the government's Paris pledge for an economy-wide 26 per cent cut because it is much more costly to cut emissions in other industries. 

Environment and Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg and Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull will try to win backbench sceptics over the NEG with a coal-friendly side-deal. Alex Ellinghausen

Mr Mailler says agriculture is itself working towards becoming carbon neutral but it is a challenge because agriculture uses so much diesel fuel for machinery and transport.

"The hardest thing to solve is transport. The simplest thing to change is static electricity. If you look at it, coal-fired power generators are coming to the end of their life. The idea that you could have politicians effectively saying we should build more of them and have them for another 50 years is absurd."

Heat and rain: Double whammy

Mr Mailler's position is influenced by bitter experience as well as science. In January 2014, the nearest Bureau of Meteorology station at Moree recorded a record high of 47.3 degrees Celsius, and everyone said it was "a one-in-a-hundred year event".

Yallourn coal-fired power station in Victoria's Latrobe Valley. Carla Gottgens

That one day wiped out crops and cost the region hundreds of millions of dollars in production, he says. But it didn't get the same attention as losses from cyclones, which are more visible.
In February last year the one-in-a-hundred year event happened again, only this time it came with a record run of days over 35 degrees.

Biochemical reactions like photosynthesis are optimised at 37-38 degrees. But at extreme high temperatures plants go into shock and the photosynthesis process is degraded.

As well, rain is increasingly coming in big dumps followed by dry spells, which make it harder for young plants to get going than if less rain falls more frequently.
"In some of those scenarios we have adequate moisture but we can't handle the heat. People are unable to get ahead. Even though some of those years before we have had significant rainfall, the way it's fallen in big dumps has been problematic and the heat has meant we are not able to use that rainfall as effectively as we have in the past."
Recent analysis in the McIntyre Valley indicates that irrigators' water use efficiency is down 30 per cent, and for dryland farmers 60 per cent, Mr Mailler says. Another measure is the inability to get consecutive good years or even one in five – the minimum to build resilience – for more than 20 years.
The last really good year in his region was 1996, Mr Mailler says – which gave him the confidence to strike out on his own.
"I have no doubt that in my lifetime weather patterns have shifted significantly. I don't know many farmers who would dispute that the climate has changed," he says.

"And it's obviously going to get worse."

Links

• Farmers For Climate Action 
• 'We've turned a corner': farmers shift on climate change and want a say on energy 
• Acceptance is fine, but farmers need climate action 
• While politicians question the reality of climate change, farmers and businesses act
• How to help farmers prepare for climate change 
• Climate change: Drought forces farming methods re-think