Researchers have developed both the dairy and sheep Carbon Offset Scenario Tool (COST) to explore the influence of various abatement strategies on greenhouse gas emissions for Australian dairy, wool and prime lamb farms.
They cover abatement strategies related to diet manipulation, herd and breeding management, feedbase management and waste management, calculating the impact of each strategy on carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide emissions, using both net emissions and emissions intensity, as well as on farm income.
Both the sheep COST and the dairy COST (now called 'DGAS') are available from the Greenhouse in Agriculture website.
Primary researchers
Publications
Christie KM, Harrison MT, Rawnsley RP, Eckard RJ (2013). A simple Carbon Offset Scenario Tool for assessing dairy farm abatement options. 20th International Congress on Modelling and Simulation (MODSIM2013), Adelaide, 1st to 6th December 2013.
Christie KM, Doran-Browne NA, Rawnsley RP, Harrison MT, Eckard RJ (2014). A simple carbon-offset scenario tool (COST) for assessing sheep enterprise intervention options to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Proceedings of the 8th International workshop on Modelling Nutrient Digestion and Utilisation in Farm Animals, Cairns, September 2014.
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