And to reaffirm this notion, they last week called on the three major parties to clarify their carbon accounting and trading policies.

“We do not see that a citizens’ assembly will bring us any closer to a solution that will satisfy a majority of senators,” TFGA chief executive Jan Davis said today.

The assembly proposal is the new plank in the federal ALP’s climate change platform that Prime Minister Julia Gillard revealed last week.

"I am far from convinced that a citizens’ assembly will add any value to the development of an acceptable carbon regime,” Ms Davis said.

“I thought the people of Australia made it clear at the last election that they wanted to see some action on this important issue, not just more talk.

“If you watched Q and A on the ABC on Monday night, for instance, I think you would have come away with the view that Penny Wong, Malcolm Turnbull and Christine Milne have most of the bases covered, with considerable intellectual firepower.

“A plebiscite of well-intentioned lay people is hardly going to further elucidate the way forward. However, if a citizens’ assembly is seen to be part of the solution, we have to be there. The TFGA’s position is that, as people who work with the climate and the land every day of our lives, we have to be involved in this process.”

Ms Davis said the TFGA believed there was a future for a revamped carbon pollution reduction scheme but it had to reward farmers for their carbon emission mitigation measures and not penalise them on international markets through increased costs of production.

"The issue of carbon responsibility is one of the key political priorities of the 21st century,” she said.

There was mounting evidence, capped recently by Tamar Natural Resource Management (Tamar NRM), that farmers were helping to make Tasmania carbon neutral, at worst, and carbon positive, at best.

The Tamar NRM study found that Tamar Valley farmers might already be locking up more greenhouse gases than they emit. Of the 17 farms in the study, each had average annual emissions of 1526 tonnes of carbon dioxide but sequestration of 2630 tonnes.

“It is imperative in this election campaign that we know the parties’ intentions regarding carbon accounting and auditing and trading,” Ms Davis said.

“We have to know the rules - and we also need to understand that the rules will become the subject of negotiation with the Greens, should they gain the balance of power in the Senate, as is expected.”