“People are calling it a carbon statement - similar to a BAS (business activity statement) - but I don’t think a one year audit would be as difficult to manage.”

A revelation that Ms Mackay found most farmers were not aware of was the exclusion of having to calculate electricity – with electrical companies likely to have to cover domestic consumption.

The Western Port Bay gas emissions project has worked with 50 farmers in the Cardinia, Baw Baw, Bass Coast and South Coast shires, after the region was found to contain the highest number of beef and dairy farms – which are a high source of greenhouse gas emissions (chiefly enteric methane (burps) and nitrous oxide losses from animal excreta.

All farmers were asked to complete a two part energy audit, taking in fuel, fertiliser and methane gas emissions and determine carbon offsets.

The majority of the figures were extracted from fuel bills, while the basis of livestock methane was calculated from the weight, and daily growth.

With practicality at the fore, Ms Mackay said one of the key benefits of the project was a focus on assisting farmers alter practices to reduce gas emission and what they can do to offset the carbon dioxide from their energy use.

“We present them with a list of up to 80 different actions that could potentially done to improve their business (such as installing solar panels, wind tower, trees etc) and calculate what their investment costs would be versus return on investment and how much emissions would drop,” she said.

“We have found most farmers are motivated to reduce but it has to be achieved economically.”

From the results farmers who had up to 25 per cent of their property under trees were found to have neutral level of carbon.

For dairy farmers Andy and Dianna Thomas, Kowera, who milk 200 cows on 200 hectares, Ms Mackay said 10ha of trees was found to offset 408 tonnes of carbon.

By increasing the number of trees Ms Mackay said the Thomas family would offset their emissions in five years.

“It can be simple.”