Horticulture: Emissions Traceability
Smarter Data. Better Decisions. Trusted Produce.
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Horticulture growers are facing increasing demands for traceability, emissions reporting and sustainability credentials, along with greater scrutiny of the data behind those claims.
The challenge is meeting these demands without creating additional data collection, duplication, administration and cost, while ensuring the information is reliable and trusted.
- The Credentials: VEERG-aligned emissions intensity credential, Agricultural Innovation Australia’s (AIA) Environmental Accounting Platform.
- The Technology: Digital Product Passport, Australian Agriculture Traceability Protocol (AATP)
Data and agtech should unlock capability, not add complexity. The challenge, therefore, is not simply to collect more data, but to make the data industry already generates work harder and to be able to stand behind its quality when it counts.
This project aims to understand what production data is already being collected across horticultural businesses, where it comes from, how it is managed, and how consistent and verifiable it is.
It will demonstrate how this trusted information can be securely shared between systems and participants across the supply chain. It is intentionally designed the to work with existing farm software and data systems rather than create new technology requirements.
The intent is not to create a final certification scheme, but to demonstrate how a future industry-wide credential could work in practice, including the data requirements, governance and assurance processes needed to support it.
The project will then explore how this data can support carbon accounting, emissions-intensity reporting and supply chain traceability.
At its core, the project seeks to answer a layered question:
How do we capture production data once, verify that it can be trusted, connect it to products as they move through the supply chain, use it to calculate emissions, and turn the result into a trusted credential?
The project acknowledges that both emissions accounting frameworks and verification processes are still evolving and is intended to help inform future industry standards.
To do this, the project will develop a practical, scalable framework, not a new software platform, enabling horticultural producers to capture, manage and link production and emissions data.
It will explore how emissions-intensity metrics can be derived from traceable, quality-assured production data, with the Australian Agriculture Traceability Protocol (AATP) providing a framework for identifying source data, linking relevant events and establishing provenance.
Working with five pilot producers across one to three horticultural commodities, the project will standardise producer-level data capture and generate commodity-level carbon accounts aligned to the Voluntary emissions estimation and reporting guidelines (VEERG) and Agricultural Innovation Australia’s (AIA) Environmental Accounting Platform.
Further integrating this information into traceability pathways via a Digital Product Passport (DPP) aligned to the Australian Agriculture Traceability Protocol (AATP) and building grower and supply chain capability through targeted workshops, demonstrations and publications.
This project is delivered by Planfarm Pty Ltd through its Planfarm TerraWise and Planfarm Horticulture Consulting divisions and is supported by grant funding from the Australian Government Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry (DAFF) under the National Agricultural Traceability Grants Program (Round 4).
The project is delivered in partnership with Trust Provenance (Digital Product Passport development), Agriculture Innovation Australia (AIA) and AgTrace Australia & Food Agility CRC (framework and protocol alignment) and acknowledges the commitment and involvement of the five participating pilot producers and the broader horticulture supply chain.
