Carrots, not sticks: what the Farming Forever Summit got right about emissions and motivation

There's a phrase that came out of the Farmers for Climate Action Farming Forever Summit last month that's hard to improve on. A farmer in the room, responding to a panel discussion on emissions incentives, put it simply: "We'll run a lot further for a carrot than we will from a stick."

Ruminati CEO Bobby Miller chaired that panel, alongside farmer and Nuffield Scholar Robert Arvier, producer and carbon project leader Dr Lorraine Gordon, Commonwealth Bank's Head of Agribusiness and Sustainability Carmel Onions, and IPCC Lead Author Dr Carly Green from Environmental Accounting Services (EAS). The conversation focused on carbon reporting and accounting: specifically the parts of it that have left farmers frustrated for too long.

Sequestration came up early, and it came up often. Producers in the room wanted to know why the work they're already doing - in trees,

in soils, across their landscape - hasn't been reflected in reporting frameworks. Dr Green's answer was one people had been waiting to hear: the new national guidelines will include sequestration, bringing recognition to on-farm practices that have gone uncredited until now.

From there the panel moved to motivation, which is really the crux of it. Robert Arvier pointed to a handful of early-stage programs already paying farmers to measure and reduce emissions. The panel's consensus was clear: positive incentives will move more producers than compliance pressure ever will.

Bobby came away from the day with a clear sense that the conversation is maturing. Policy has a role, but the farmers in that room weren't waiting on it. They were already looking for ways to be part of the solution, they just need the frameworks and the incentives to catch up with them.