Page 65 - Msingi Afrika Magazine Issue 22
P. 65
Food Health
“green” investments. Financial man-
agers can now use digital platforms Australia’s soil grab and similar threats in other countries
to buy farms in Brazil, sign them
up for carbon credits, and run their
operations all from their offices on Australia established a national Carbon Farming Initiative in 2011 to
Wall Street. generate offsets to meet its emissions reduction targets. Projects that
meet the Initiative’s guidelines can sell Australian carbon credit units
(ACCUs) through the Climate Solutions Fund to the government or
Well-grounded solutions
Australian corporations. So far, the government has been by far the
largest buyer of ACCUs.[23]Some of the corporations participating in
The food system is the source of these projects include Shell, through its subsidiary Select Carbon, and
over a third of global greenhouse TotalEnergies, through a tie-up with the Australian carbon farming
gas emissions, and climate actions company Agriprove.
must focus first and foremost on
reducing emissions, not offsets. The Initiative has had difficulty generating enough carbon credits to
Programmes that help farmers to meet the demand from Australia’s big emitters, who much prefer offset-
restore carbon in their soils are ting emissions to reducing them. So, to increase supply, the government
necessary and should be publicly has opted to lower standards for carbon credits, such as dropping the
supported. Still, to effectively deal obligation on carbon farming projects to ensure a permanence period
with the climate crisis, they must be from 100 years to 25 years. However, with the price for carbon credits
firmly integrated with larger actions increasing, Australia is now faced with a carbon credit land grab. In
to eliminate greenhouse gas emis- early 2022, the government put forward legislation to give it a veto on
sions on the farm and throughout carbon farming projects of over 15 hectares to stop financial compa-
the food system. This requires a rap- nies from buying up farmland and converting it to tree plantations for
id phase-out of nitrogen fertilizers carbon credits. The government needed the veto because investors
and other chemical inputs. It means were buying up large swaths of productive agricultural land only to
a widespread shift to agroecological “simply walk away and throw away the key”.
farming, along with support to local
food markets that can bring these Others warn that Australia’s purchase of millions of carbon credits
foods to nearby consumers and ac- from carbon offset projects that cannot guarantee permanence will
tions that ensure small farmers have jeopardise its overall emissions targets. The vice-chair of the Intergov-
access to lands and water. It means a ernmental Panel on Climate Change, Mark Howden, says Australia’s
revitalisation of farmer seed systems reliance on soil carbon to cut emissions is “problematic and risky” as
focussed on developing varieties the climate warms. “As things get hotter and drier, which is the predic-
adapted to local contexts and not tion for southern Australia, then the soil carbon is likely to go down,”
dependent on chemical inputs. It he says.
involves policies to eliminate the
surplus production and consump- Yet other governments with highly polluting agricultural sectors seem
tion of high-emissions foods, like determined to follow Australia’s questionable path. The National Fam-
meat and dairy, and the wasteful and ily Farm Coalition and other civil society organisations in the US are
unhealthy ultra-processed foods that locked in a fight to stop the Biden administration from passing legisla-
the big food corporations heavily tion that would create a national market for carbon credit farming.[26]
promote. Similarly, the European Coordination Via Campesina and other groups
The food and agribusiness corpo- in Europe are battling to stop the European Commission from forging
rations that profit off of today’s ahead with its own plans for a European-wide carbon credit farming
global food system will not support programme.[27]Even Brazil, where the agricultural sector accounts for
these real solutions. Corporations over two-thirds of national emissions (if deforestation is included), the
are cogs in the wheel, and unless Bolsonaro government is pursuing a National Emissions Reductions
their power is challenged, they will Market that would exclude most agriculture emissions from national
continue to block necessary action caps and thus enable the sale of offsets from carbon credit farming to
and push us into diversions like car- foreign companies and governments.
bon credit farming. No amount of
greenwashing can alter that reality.
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