Cibo Farm Reports aims to unlock the benefits of digital agriculture across the supply chain – Linking data from paddock to plate.
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Australian farmers often have difficulty accessing the information and technology they need to tell their story.
In recent years there has been:
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an increasing focus across all agricultural sectors wanting to improve long-term profitability, sustainability and environmental outcomes in a changing and highly variable climate.
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an increase across the general community, consumers and retailers asking questions about the impact of agriculture on the environment, climate change, animal welfare and related issues.
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an increasing need for transparent information along entire supply chains.
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development of carbon and broader natural capital markets that have been complex and offered little financial incentive for most farmers to engage.
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increasing regulatory burdens on farmers.
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rhetoric about competition from alternative proteins, particularly plant-based proteins.
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significant advances in a range of digital “agtech” that offers significant potential benefits but is still seeing relatively low levels of adoption.
Cibo Farm Reports is providing simple tools and key information to address important questions of sustainability, profitability, transparency and cost across supply chains.
Cibo Farm Reports - A Ten-Minute Process to generate fundamental data for an entire rural property
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Create a secure, authenticated and auditable digital farm record that will make it easier and cheaper to access and integrate “agtech solutions” into your business.
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Verify property boundaries and link these to the digital farm record to “spatially enable” current and future biosecurity and supply chain accreditation systems and reporting.
Access 30 years of satellite imagery and generate reports on trends in land condition indicators – monthly rainfall, seasonal ground cover and annual tree cover change.
These simple to understand reports can be used for:
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Property benchmarking that can be used to report on the Australian Beef Sustainability Framework (ABSF) Balance of Tree and Grass Cover metrics for the property.
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Assessing trends in land condition that may guide decisions on long term sustainable carrying capacity.
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Support property valuations for the seller and the buyer based on objective information on land condition and productivity.
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Undertaking a rapid analysis of whether a property may be suitable and eligible for a carbon, biodiversity or other ecosystem service project.
The Cibo Farm Reports and Land Condition Baselining Reports have recently been accepted by the Clean Energy Regulator for verifying property ownership and providing a simple and repeatable 10 year baseline trend for registration of soil carbon projects.
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Measuring trends in ground cover and tree cover change is not a direct measure of changes in carbon, but rather a proxy for potential changes in carbon. It is assumed that without improvements in ground cover, it is unlikely pasture production has increased and therefore soil carbon. Similarly, changes in woody vegetation are a proxy for increasing or decreasing carbon stocks.
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The Baseline Ground Cover Report becomes the baseline ground cover condition for the property, against which positive changes in ground cover as a result of a new and or material management activity can be measured.
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The specific new or material land management activities for achieving the Reasonable Material Change target for the soil carbon project could include one or more of the following:
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applying nutrients to address a material deficiency
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re-establishing or rejuvenating a pasture
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establishing, and permanently maintaining a pasture where there was previously no pasture
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altering the stocking rate, duration or intensity of grazing.
Cibo Labs has already commercialised satellite pasture biomass monitoring capabilities that will significantly reduce the cost and improve the accuracy of ground-based carbon estimation methods in line with the vision of the First Low Emissions Technology Statement – 2020.
The Cibo Farm Reports provides the spatial and business data for linking and integrating industry systems (e.g ISC) and Farm Management System (FMS) platforms – allowing B2B system integration along the value chain. For example, automatic linking of livestock GPS tracking with NLIS and the property boundary.
The Cibo Farm Reports provides the verified starting point for accurate farm infrastructure mapping and monitoring; biosecurity plans, provision of satellite monitoring services (cropping and pasture), emergency response and many other farm management applications. Users are able to access near-real-time (5-day) satellite imagery through their secure Cibo Labs dashboard.
Useful Background Documents
Cibo Farm Reports has been developed to provide rural landowners and those working on their behalf to better engage with a range of national initiatives. The application allows reports to be generated for individual properties that align with the objectives of initiatives below, and others in development.
An increasing focus across all agricultural sectors wanting to improve long-term profitability, sustainability and transparency across supply chains has led to the development of industry reporting frameworks such as the Australian Beef Sustainability Framework; industries establishing targets on becoming carbon neutral (e.g. CN30 and NFF Carbon Neutral 2050; numerous schemes focusing on provenance and traceability, and retailers implementing procurement policies around sustainability credentials to meet consumer demands (such as the McDonalds Deforestation Free Beef).
Australia has been at the international forefront of developing carbon markets and carbon offset schemes through initiatives like the Carbon Farming Initiative, Climate Solutions Fund and related programs, however the opportunities and general adoption of these programs by Australian agriculture has been relatively low due to the administrative burdens, risks, complexity and costs associated.
In September 2020 the Australian Government announced a Technology-led plan to lower emissions, lower costs and support jobs. Critically for agriculture, one of the key actions is to commence a soil carbon innovation challenge to rapidly reduce the cost of measuring the impact of new farming practices on soil carbon sequestration. The Statement outlines five priority technologies and economic stretch goals to make new technologies as cost-effective as existing technologies. One of these goals is to:
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Reduce soil carbon measurement under $3 per hectare per year – a 90% reduction from today’s measurement costs and would transform the economics of soil carbon projects for Australian farmers.
Rainfall data utilised by Cibo Farm Reports is sourced from the Bureau of Meteorology - More info.