Australia’s national science agency CSIRO has unveiled a new digital tool designed to help farmers evaluate and communicate the environmental footprint of agricultural production.
In a news release, the agency said the FarmPrint platform allows farmers across Australia to assess, benchmark and report greenhouse gas emissions from their operations.
According to CSIRO, the tool aims to support the agriculture sector as it faces growing expectations from markets, lenders and supply chains for clearer emissions reporting.
Originally developed as a prototype with early support from the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, FarmPrint has been refined over the past year through trials on CSIRO research farms.
The platform enables farmers, agricultural advisers and finance-sector partners to compare performance against regional benchmark data and track changes in farm-level emissions over time.
Dr Murray Hall, CSIRO senior research scientist working on FarmPrint, said field testing helped strengthen the tool’s reliability. “Testing in the field, under real-life conditions, has provided valuable feedback to ensure the tool is robust,” Hall said.
He said the first phase of the platform adopts a cradle-to-farm-gate approach, measuring not only direct on-farm greenhouse gas emissions but also emissions embedded in inputs such as fertilisers, chemicals and diesel.
“We look forward to working with the agricultural sector to add new capabilities, support reporting, refine calculations and help farms identify pathways to reduce emissions,” Hall said.
CSIRO said the platform is designed to align with evolving national and international emissions reporting standards.
The organisation said FarmPrint is intended to support transparency and collaboration across the agriculture value chain, with a dedicated webpage offering documentation and an application programming interface to allow integration with other software and data systems.
The agency also noted that digital agriculture research continues to expand, and the new tool translates that research into a practical application for farm management. CSIRO said FarmPrint is expected to become a long-term addition to sustainable farming practices.
