Measuring On-Farm Natural Capital
Industries around the world are adopting new performance standards such as triple-bottom line reporting. Perth NRM is investigating tools for applying environmental reporting in agriculture.
Natural Capital Accounting project with West Australian famers
Industries around the world are adopting new performance standards such as triple-bottom line reporting. Perth NRM is investigating tools for applying environmental reporting in agriculture.
Natural Capital is the stock of natural resources like vegetation, water, soils, and biodiversity that generate ecosystem services. Our farming enterprises are underpinned by Natural Capital through the generation of ecosystem services for food production. The land management practices of farmers are directly associated with the inherent value and productive capacity (natural capital) of agricultural land. Natural capital accounting (NCA) is emerging as a mechanism to account for the value of these natural assets.
“For over two centuries, Australian landholders have invested in and managed properties for production and sale of agricultural commodities within various market arrangements that have ultimately focused on production with less consideration of the value of natural capital used in producing those goods, and, unfortunately, this natural capital has depreciated over time”
National Farmers’ Federation
Natural Capital Statement
The Perth NRM Natural Capital Accounting project aims to help identify how farmers can measure NC and how they can utilise that information in their decision making, and to communicate their environmental performance to their stakeholders.
NCA will provide a robust measurement and verification framework for determining the change in the condition of Natural Capital and the economic contribution of Natural Capital to our farming systems. Allowing for directed investment towards the adoption of farming practices that build NC. NCA also provides the information and comparability that is needed to access the ‘ethical consumer’ market, which rewards producers that are improving their ecosystems.
Sue Ogilvy’s presentation at the inaugural Regenerative Agriculture Conference in 2019 (#RAWA19) provides an overview of the development of Natural Capital Accounting as a step toward meeting United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
Perth NRM is looking for 30 properties across WA to participate in a project that will help develop the tools, techniques, and measures to create a NCA framework* that will help guide policy and resources for the agricultural sector.
*NCA is aligned to the United Nations System of Environmental-Economic accounting used by governments for economic analysis and policy design.
NCA Learning Case Studies
As part of the pilot for Natural Capital Accounting (NCA) in WA, five learning case studies were developed in 2021. These learning case studies set out to identify how farmers can measure Natural Capital and how they can utilise that information in their decision making and communicate their environmental performance to their stakeholders.
The process for the learning case studies began with a series of online co-design workshops, working with key stakeholders to guide the approach for NCA. These workshops were critical in ensuring that the accounts reflect what is important in the farming enterprises, ie production systems and ecological assets and also covering the points of interest.
Following on from the co-design process, 5 farms volunteered to participate in NCA for Western Australia. These properties were situated in the South-west and Wheatbelt regions.
As part of this process, the NCA team had the opportunity to undertake and ‘test drive’ emerging NCA methodologies specifically designed for ecological assessments on some of the learning case study properties.
As the reports contain confidential information supplied by the farms, Perth NRM and project partner Integrated Futures have created a report on the final design for the learning case studies and an example case study demonstrating the methodolgy and results for a hypothetical agricultural enterprise, ECOFarmCo.
 NCA Learnings – Phase 1 Report |
 Sample NCA Case Study ‘ECOFarmCo’ |
The partnership approach to this project includes:
- Integrated Futures
- State NRM
- Commonland
The Measuring On-Farm Natural Capital program is delivered in partnership with Integrated Futures, with funding and support from Commonland and the State Natural Resources Management Program.
Partners
We acknowledge and appreciate the support of all our partners, supporters, funding bodies and sponsors.
