New industry resources give growers impartial information and advice
Nature repair, biodiversity, natural capital, environmental markets… sometimes these topics can be confusing and growers are finding it time consuming and difficult to get the independent advice they need in a one-stop-shop.
To assist growers, CRDC and CottonInfo have supported the development of resources for growers with impartial objective recommendations to help them navigate products in the interlinked realms of biodiversity, natural capital and environmental markets. The online resources provide guidance around resources, how to access them, and steps toward implementation and usage.
“Understanding a farm’s biodiversity today can help growers prepare for future changes, navigate evolving policies, meet supply chain expectations, and respond to sustainability trends,” says CRDC Innovation Broker Stacey Vogel, who has led the development of these new resources.
“Growers are telling us they need neutral and objective advice on how to start taking advantage of environmental markets and the best tools for the job.
“These new online resources have links to the best websites and resources to save them time and money, and offer clear advice to support them.”
Assessing biodiversity
Key biodiversity indicators on cotton farms include native vegetation, land cover and the presence of both native and invasive species. There are many tools available to help assess biodiversity, from free online platforms to detailed paid services. While the best choice depends on individual needs, to explore a farm’s biodiversity data and start mapping, a great starting point is PLANR.
PLANR (Platform for Land and Nature Repair) is a free, government-supported mapping tool designed to help growers participate in Australia’s Nature Repair Market Scheme. It can help users understand their farm’s current biodiversity, track its changes over time, and make better decisions that open up new market opportunities.
Tracking natural capital
Consistent natural capital data helps growers stay ahead of evolving regulations and demonstrate responsible land management. Many growers are already making significant contributions to environmental sustainability. Two key resources are CSIRO’s Natural Capital Handbook and La Trobe University’s Farm Scale Natural Capital Accounting Methods.
Natural Capital Accounting (NCA) helps track and value those efforts. It’s a structured way to measure biodiversity and other natural resources, such as soil and water, at the whole-farm level. Compared to simpler tools like PLANR, NCA offers a more detailed, whole-farm assessment, connecting land use, management and biodiversity outcomes.
By adopting NCA, growers benefit from being able to measure and monitor environmental assets and biodiversity over time, understand how management practices impact natural systems, and see how ecological health contributes to farm productivity. Growers can use NCA to understand how natural assets, such as soil, water, and biodiversity, contribute to their farm’s resilience and productivity. It supports decision-making and provides evidence of environmental performance. Key benefits include:
- Measuring biodiversity and other natural capital, like carbon
- Understanding environmental risks
(e.g. water shortages, degradation) - Identifying new market opportunities
(e.g. carbon or biodiversity credits) - Preparing for sustainability reporting
(e.g. Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures – TNFD).
Environmental markets
Environmental markets are still developing, but they may offer new opportunities for cotton growers. The Introduction to environmental markets resource is a grower’s guide to environmental markets and how to measure what matters. It gives examples of tools that can support biodiversity measurement and market readiness.
Environmental markets assign financial value to activities that benefit nature, such as restoring habitat, planting native vegetation or improving ecosystem health. Outcomes may include enhanced carbon storage, increased habitat for threatened species or improved farm resilience. Environmental improvements may attract funding from government programs or private buyers.
While these markets are still developing and trade volumes are relatively low in some areas, they offer growing potential as governments and buyers increasingly seek ways to support measurable environmental outcomes.
The CottonInfo resource explains types of environmental markets from government-regulated offset markets (e.g. NSW Biodiversity Offset Scheme) through to biodiversity credit schemes (e.g. NaturePlus, Nature Repair Market) and carbon markets with biodiversity co-benefits (e.g. Queensland Land Restoration Fund).
“Cotton growers already contribute to biodiversity by protecting native vegetation, managing pests sustainably, and maintaining healthy waterways,” Stacey said.
“Environmental markets provide a new way to recognise, reward, and enhance these efforts.
“Environmental markets may provide an additional source of income through biodiversity or carbon credit sales and support long-term sustainability, by leaving the land in better condition for future generations.
“Preparation for entering these markets can also offer benefits through avenues such as improved pest control from increased native species, preparation for sustainability disclosures and maintaining market access by meeting buyer and supply chain expectations.”
Measuring for market participation
Unlike carbon markets, which use a single metric (carbon equivalents), environmental markets rely on a wider range of data. Many projects begin with satellite imagery to identify areas of potential, but participation requires accurate, on-ground ecological data, especially for species occurrence and abundance and/or fine-scale condition of habitats and ecosystems that focus on composition, structure and function – in other words, the health of a habitat for a particular species (e.g. wetlands) or an ecosystem, for example a Eucalyptus woodland.
These measures are typically gathered using government-approved survey protocols or standardised field monitoring systems such as bird surveys or vegetation condition scoring. Emerging technologies, such as passive acoustic monitors or eDNA to detect species without visual observation, however would be less time consuming and costly.
Automated biodiversity monitoring technology is being developed under a CRDC project with the University of Sunshine Coast (UniSC) and Queensland University of Technology.
“Along with these resources, CRDC is working to make biodiversity monitoring less arduous and expensive,” Stacey said.
“The UniSC researchers will be back in the field later this year to deploy full-sized, autonomous acoustic monitors on cotton farms, which will be a game changer in comparison to the methods currently available.” (See Spotlight Summer 2024-25)
For more
Stacey Vogel
[email protected]
This article appears courtesy of the Cotton Research and Development Corporation (CRDC). It was published in the (Spring 2025) edition of CRDC’s Spotlight magazine: www.crdc.com.au/spotlight