We are all familiar with financial accounts, which tell us what we own and what we owe at a given point in time, and “account” for the changes that have occurred over time. Financial accounts don’t tell us whether our financial performance impacts the underlying natural capital that our business depends on. Are we maintaining the amount and condition of natural capital, or is the financial performance achieved at the expense of consuming the natural capital?
Farm-scale Natural Capital Accounts provide visibility of the extent and condition of the underlying natural capital assets. The accounts generated in this project will provide a snapshot at a single point in time of the extent and condition of the natural capital on a farm. However, the greenhouse gas emissions and resource use intensity data are averaged across multiple years (up to the previous five years). The natural capital data is intended to work in tandem with financial accounts – explaining some of the reasons for the financial performance.
Download: Farm-scale NCA Interim Accounts June 2023
Download: Reference materials for State and Transition Models, Grazing Classification
What is in the accounts? The ‘interim’ accounts include:
- A summary of greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) (Table 1) and selected resource use efficiency and pollution generated (Table 2) for the whole farm business.
- A summary of greenhouse gas emissions and resource use intensity for each farm product produced on the farm (Tables 3 & 4).
- An estimate of the proportion of finite resources used by enterprise (Table 5).
- A summary of the extent (in hectares) of each of the different the types of natural capital (i.e., ecosystems) on the farm (Table 7). This information is based on the underlying state and transition models that represent ecosystem condition and can be used in future to estimate the ecosystem services your farm business, your family, your community and your livestock are receiving from the natural capital of the farm.
- A map of the ecosystem states (natural capital assets) on your farm.
- A summary of the area (extent) of ecosystems that are in each classification (A, B, C, D and NA) for livestock grazing (Table 8).
- A map of grazing classification.
- A list of bird species recorded on your farm during our surveys, their conservation status and relative occurrence on your farm (Table 9).
- A description of some of the methods used to generate your account.
The final accounts will include further information and data, including estimates of carbon sequestration in woody vegetation, allowing net greenhouse gas balance statement for the whole farm and per farm product, biodiversity layers (plants, birds) for the farm, whole of farm connectivity and ecological integrity metrics, soil condition and estimates of ecosystem services (shade, shelter, beneficial insects). This will all come together in a dashboard to capture the headline indicators.
We thank our project partner, Tiverton Agricultural, for generously allowing us to share their interim account from their property, Orana Park, located in central Victoria.
