Animal Justice Party wants to ban agriculture from saying sustainable

The Animal Justice Party made the recommendation to a parliamentary inquiry into greenwashing, however the agriculture industry rejected the proposal as the "extremists ramblings" one would expect to find in a dystopic TV show or George Orwell book.

The AJP also wants to prohibit the agriculture industry from using the terms regenerative, holistic, zero emissions, carbon neutral and net zero.

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The greenwashing inquiry is investigating how to deal with fraudulent or exaggerated claims industries and businesses make about their environmental and sustainability credentials.

The AJP claimed the agriculture industry was pulling the wool over the eyes of consumers, because it couldn't prove any of its claims.

"In addition to the claim of being 'carbon neutral', grandiose claims of 'holistic grazing or holistic management' or 'regenerative agriculture' have been adopted by the sector without substantiating their basis in fact or scale of effectiveness," the AJP submission stated.

"The assertion is made as if they have been proven, and major retailers have been quick to capitulate."

To support its claim, the AJP quoted two European studies - which are more than seven years old - that questioned the effectiveness of rotational grazing.

National Farmers' Federation chief executive Tony Mahar said the AJP's submission "reads like extremist ramblings" and revealed the organisation's true agenda - to shut down Australian farms.

"It's the kind of outlandish control you might find in the script of a dystopian tv series, and not what the average Australian would expect or want to see," Mr Mahar said.

"Obviously farms can be sustainable. Obviously they can be carbon neutral. They should be able to make those claims if they can back them up.

"They're throwing science out the window and hiding behind university studies from the other side of the globe. It exposes just how little they understand about Australia's unique primary production systems."

In a sign the AJP will never be satisfied, the submission even criticised a regenerative farmer in Albury doing his best to be transparent to consumers.

"Interested members of the public are obliged to attend an education session which he conducts on farm to expound his narrative in order for them to qualify as his customers," the submission stated.

"This is, in effect, a closed club for which external examination of any regenerative agriculture practices and the assumptions underpinning them remain inscrutable to consumers."

Jake Wolki, the farmer in question, said the on-farm tour "was the exact opposite of what [AJP] is proposing", and only for customers looking to use the farm's self-serve butcher.

"I've got some of the most extreme transparency in the industry, and somehow all of a sudden it's sinister," Mr Wolki said.

"It's clearly agenda driven, they've got preconceived ideas and they're forcing everything to their narrative.

"The reason we do [the farm tour] is purely because we want to get boots on the ground, and have that dialogue to build a community relationship with our consumers."

Mr Wolki wasn't surprised to hear the AJP wanted to ban farmers from using certain words, saying extreme animal rights activists often weaponized language.

"Every time I've engaged with militant vegans or animal activists, it always comes down to policing of language," he said.

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