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Farmers take back control with a digital first

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Farmer-owned environmental goods and services broker Regen Farmers Mutual is set to launch their digital platform this week, as the first of 400 farmers on a growing waitlist take up the service.

RFM’s farmer members will have access to a customised ‘digital twin’ of their farms which can be used to assess their green credentials and the environmental value of their property.

A first of its kind in Australia, the mutual aims to return 80 per cent of transaction value via carbon and biodiversity markets to the farmer with the rest shared by local Landcare or Natural Resource Management (NRM) groups and the mutual.

Barham’s Western Murray Land Improvement Group staff were among the 80 farmers, Landcare and natural resource managers who co-designed the mutual.

With NFF predictions of a potential $5 billion annual income from environmental services by 2030 – the value of the entire Australian wheat crop or all sheep and lamb transactions in 2019/2020 – farmers and Landcarers jumped in early to design a brokerage to suit them and not the middle men.

“We can hardly keep up with demand, with assessments tripling in the past two weeks alone,” Regen Farmers Mutual co-director Andrew Ward said.

“The process for creating a Digital Twin is called an Environmental Farm Assessment because it doesn’t just look at ag assets like dams, bores and sheds; it includes remnant vegetation, watercourses, biodiversity hot spots and resource usage across the farm,” he said. “In this climate not knowing the true value of what farmers have under their feet can be very costly.

“This is a big shift. They’ve gone from seeing just trees in a paddock to looking at their economic value and biodiversity value. Our farmers designed RFM so we could stick together and help others model different environmental actions and the way these would impact their operations and income.”

Mr Ward said farmers as land stewards were critical to the environmental market and should not be left without power.

“Combined, the members of the mutual have the ability to shape markets in their favour for once – to be price makers not takers,” he said. “It will also create a mechanism to attract private sector capital to invest in credible and appropriately structured transactions.”

Traditional assets like cleared productive land but also newly recognised assets like the remnant natural environment around them are driving the boom in rural property prices, Mr Ward said.

“When nature’s value outstrips the growth being seen in Australia’s most populated cities, including Sydney, it’s a big deal,” he said.

Ward points to Elders data which indicates the value of rural land has increased by more than 18 per cent in the 12 months to December 2021 with a new national median price at $7,635 per hectare.

“It’s never been more important for farmers to know the value of their total assets,” Ward said.

Contact: Andrew Ward, Regen Farmers Mutual co-director on andrew@regenfarmersmutual.com or 0417446658.

The Koondrook and Barham Bridge Newspaper 23 June 2022

This article appeared in The Koondrook and Barham Bridge Newspaper, 23 June 2022.

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For all the news from The Koondrook and Barham Bridge Newspaper, go to https://www.thebridgenews.com.au/