Over the years I have learned a lot about the ways in which the best of our farmers make the best profits. And how those principles of profit can be applied to all types of farms, and for all types of farmers.

The recent eCOGENT Farming for Change conference, held in Christchurch late last month, was an exciting demonstration of those principles in action - and a groundbreaking event in showing that high financial profits and sustainable farming practices can now go hand in hand. Developments in carbon farming are tremendously exciting but it is really important to be able to measure the bottom-line impacts.

The eCOGENT system provides a robust way to do this, allowing farmers to evaluate the effectiveness, efficiency and profit-generating abilities of these new approaches. As regular readers will be aware, this system offers a unique ability to drill down to daily profit indicators, allowing farmers to make decisions based on being able to forecast profit per kg of dry matter eaten for every mob of animals on their farm. This process takes into account everything from production levels through to financial forecasts, market pricing, weather patterns and animal and soil testing.

Because this system allows farmers to measure profit no matter what farming practices they use, we have been able to evaluate the impacts of sustainable approaches. And we are seeing evidence that environmentally sustainable farm management can deliver bottom-line benefits. For example fertiliser and grazing management practices which deliver improved soil and pasture quality also deliver enhanced animal health, and hence enhanced profits. In short, it is now clear there is a profitable way to produce healthy food and address climate change issues by achieving positive carbon levels, lowering runoffs and lowering CHG nasties. Some of our clients are already heading down the carbon farming pathway, and have commenced measuring carbon levels in soils. They have found the measures that increase pasture sustainability also improve many other aspects of their farm businesses, including profitability.

Carbon farming is well underway in Australia, where farmers Michael and Louise Kiely have already established a system for selling carbon credits on the Chicago Carbon Exchange. We were privileged to have the Kiely's at the Farming for Change conference, and Michael's presentation was truly inspiring.

Michael was hoping then that some official recognition of carbon farming would eventually come from the Australian government. Well, it just has. Prime Minister Rudd has now announced that as part of the Australia's Farming Future initiative the government will investigate how better soil carbon management can be part of Australia's response to climate change. I think where Australia goes we will undoubtedly go, and it is so pleasing to see that many eCOGENT members are already well on the way.

Our two other conference speakers - internationally renowned biological agriculture expert Arden Andersen and American vet Paul Detloff - also made huge contributions to the sustainable farming debate. The response from members and non-members alike was overwhelmingly positive and supportive, and the exchange of information was extremely valuable to everyone.