Sugar produced by Queensland’s Smartcane Best Management Practices (BMP) accredited growers is increasingly recognised as “sustainable” in Australia and internationally, but the environmental credentials of cane farming do not seem to be ringing true for the State government and scientists in their quest to protect the Great Barrier Reef.
Most of Queensland’s raw sugar is exported and refined in the Asia-Pacific region, where food and beverage manufacturers are looking to source certified sustainably-produced sugar. So the CANEGROWERS organization was quick to celebrate news earlier in March that Coca-Cola Amatil had approved the industry’s Smartcane BMP program and the international program Bonsucro as meeting its on-farm sustainable sugar requirements. Coca-Cola Amatil announced that all sugar purchasing contracts to 2021 will be a mix of Smartcane BMP and Bonsucro certified sugar.
According to Canegrowers, Smartcane BMP provides a framework for growers to demonstrate and implement farm practices that improve productivity and profitability while also reducing the risk of environmental impact, particularly to the Great Barrier Reef. More than 70% of the state’s sugarcane land is being managed by growers who are involved. Furthermore, CANEGROWERS is now working with the big sugar trading and supply chain firm Czarnikow (https://www.czarnikow.com/) and its VIVE program for sustainable sugar on a joint path to compliance.
Whilst sugarcane growers are celebrating growing recognition of their sustainability and environmental credentials by industrial users and other sustainability marques, they are having far less success in convincing state government and scientists that cane farmers are doing enough to stop significant quantities of fertiliser, pesticides and sediment from sugarcane farms entering the Great Barrier Reef lagoon. In fact, armed with strong scientific evidence, the Queensland government in February introduced a Bill to Parliament to regulate farming activities – particularly cane growing and grazing - to protect the Reef - the Environmental Protection (Great Barrier Reef Protection Measures) and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2019 . Whilst the government explicitly recognises and applauds the many sugarcane producers who are managing their land sustainably, and who have adopted Smartcane BMP, it also asserts strengthened reef protection regulations are still needed to reduce water pollution (nutrients and sediment) from agricultural and industrial land uses entering Reef waters.
The Queensland Government draws its strong scientific evidence that significant quantities of fertiliser, pesticides and sediment are still entering the Great Barrier Reef lagoon from the 2017 Scientific Consensus Statement for the Great Barrier Reef (Land use impacts on Great Barrier Reef water quality and ecosystem condition). The consensus statement was produced by a multidisciplinary group of 48 scientists with expertise in Great Barrier Reef water quality science and management, led by TropWATER James Cook University, with oversight from the Reef Water Quality Independent Science Panel.
So where to now? CANEGROWERS is asking Parliament to reject the Bill. Because industrial users have already accepted smartcane BMP’s sustainability credentials, new State government legislation will not help win new friends domestically or in export markets. Furthermore, the canegrowing industry is proactively moving to better understand the relationship between farm management and water quality through a new project to be undertaken by Sugar Research Australia - the Cane to Creek 2.0 project, which is funded by a partnership between the Australian Government’s Reef Trust, the Great Barrier Reef Foundation and with the support of the SRA. The goal is to see increased adoption of improved practices that have been shown to improve productivity, profitability and sustainability of the sugarcane industry. Perhaps then it is understandable why the CANEGROWERS organization is dead against the proposed Barrier Reef legislation. Tighter Reef regulations won’t boost the already market-accepted sustainability credentials of Queensland’s Sugar and so all the legislation would bring is much loathed bureaucratic interference on growers and increased regulation of farm activities and of the sugar supply chain. But to the scientific community and the government, the plea of canefarmers that new Reef legislation will only frustrate the Smartcane BMP success story may still not ring true.