🐄 Farmers target bovine burps

🎊 WHAT’S ON THIS WEEK 🎟️

• THURSDAY, 05/03/26 | Sarah Blasko

• SAT. 28/02 - SUN. 15/03 | Neerim Artsfest

• SATURDAY, 14/03/26 | Saint Patrick’s Day at the Poowong Hotel

• SUNDAY, 08/03/26 | Prom Coast Pack Runs

• SUNDAY, 08/03/26 | Hooked on Lakes Seafood and Fishing Festival

🧺 FARMERS MARKETS 🥧

• SATURDAY, 07/03/26 | Trafalgar Market

• SATURDAY, 07/03/26 | Koonwarra Farmers Market

• SATURDAY, 07/03/26 | Farmers' Market Bairnsdale

• SATURDAY, 07/03/26 | Heyfield Market

• SATURDAY, 07/03/26 | Fish Creek Summer Market

• SUNDAY, 08/03/26 | Longford Community Market

• SUNDAY, 08/03/26 | Kongwak Market

🔍 HEARD THIS WEEK👂

🐄 Why Gippsland dairy farmers should be putting seaweed in the feed

Slipping a little seaweed into a cow's diet can lessen the dire impact bovine belching and farting has on the planet.

That’s just one of the ways Australian dairy farmers can significantly cut their emissions, according to Dr Richard Eckard, Professor of Carbon Farming at the University of Melbourne.

Eckard helps farmers around the country calculate their carbon footprint and find ways to reduce it - but he told the Monitor the real goal is for farmers to find ways to increase profitability in the process.

What happened: Eckard said that as markets, banks and food producers aim to reduce their carbon pollution, farmers are increasingly required to demonstrate low-emission practices.

• 🗣️“In Australia, 75 percent of our produce is exported,” Eckard said. “It's those export markets that are asking for these emissions reduction targets.”

Making choices more profitable

🗣️“Dairy is one of the fortunate industries that has the ability to knock off about 50 percent of [its] emissions,” Eckard said.

The problem is to cut those emissions in some areas, farmers would currently face a drop in profitability.

• Improving soil health: Dairy farmers can coat fertiliser with an inhibitor that reduces emissions from fertiliser by 50 percent. 

“This can happen tomorrow,” Eckard said. “It's just that the fertiliser [with an inhibitor] costs 14 percent more and doesn't give farmers productivity growth.”

• Seaweed feed: Including seaweed or Bovaer (a feed additive for cattle) into their cows’ feed can reduce methane output by 50 percent.

If farmers use Bovaer, the reduction in emissions could earn them seven cents per cow per day in carbon credits they can sell on the open market. Eckard said the problem is Bovaer costs 50 cents per cow per day, so farmers are running at a loss.

How have companies helped farmers reach these goals?

Coles and Woolworths have a target of being carbon neutral by 2050. If these companies can get their meat and dairy providers to cut carbon and methane emissions, it helps them reach the target.

Coles has invested in expanding the use of Bovaer in the meat suppliers it buys from, and Woolworths in a home brand seaweed-derived feed.

Read the full story here.

✈️ “A watch and wait situation”: Gippsland travel agent’s advice on international flights

Almost 200,000 passengers pass through Dubai airport every day, so it’s no wonder the ripples from the war in the Middle East - which has led to airport closures in key transit destinations such as Dubai and Abu Dhabi - have reached Renee McLennan of Mobile Travel Agents in Leongatha.

Big outlay, big worry: Gippsland travel agents are fielding calls from worried passengers who had pre-booked flights to the Middle East, or to transit through enroute to Europe, as well as hotel rooms and tours.

“There's hundreds of thousands of passengers worldwide looking to change flights,” McLennan told the Monitor.

European summer

“I've got hundreds of clients who will be going to Europe for summer.” 

McLennan said roughly 80 percent of her clients flying to Europe this year are flying with Qatar Airways or Emirates, with stopovers in the Middle East.

Read the full story here.

🕺 MARCH EVENT GUIDES 🎸

🧺 Affordable food and local produce. Here’s our Gippsland Farmers Markets list for this March

Gippsland markets provide a great opportunity to support local businesses and community endeavours while often paying less for produce and products than what you would normally pay in a supermarket.

Check out the list of farmers markets here.

💃 March gig guide: The best live music in Gippsland this month

There's plenty of live music across Gippsland this March so make the most of it.

Check out the list of gigs here.

LOOKING NATIONALLY 👀

Large data centres are popping up around Australia. How the government decides to regulate them is going to have huge implications for our water and energy use.

Gippsland is not immune to this new industry. In January, Singaporean company Keppel announced it had secured the rights to lease a 123-hectare site at Hazelwood to build and operate a data centre.

My colleague Archie Milligan had a chat to Carbon Zero Initiative’s Alexander Hoysted who has collaborated with industry groups, unions, community organisations and environmental groups to put forward a proposal that would see future data centres forced to adhere to a set of principles.

Take a look at a video of the chat below.