Trees gobble up farm land
Rural communities are being hollowed out as carbon investors buy up farm land at prices well over those farmers might pay, Pahiatua sheep and beef farmer Lincoln Grant says.
School closures were just one symptom of the trend towards increased pine plantations on former sheep and beef farms, he said. Tiraumea school, north of Masterton, is one school that closed its doors two years ago after changing land use led to dropping roll numbers.
As farming families sold up and moved away, jobs went with them.
Grant said ever-encroaching pine forests had a huge impact in the Wairarapa in recent years.
‘‘There’s virtually trees from Tiraumea to Pongaroa now. All those farms are gone, just getting planted in trees for carbon credits,’’ he said.
Recent changes to climate change legislation could lead to accelerated planting of pine on sheep and beef farms, particularly in hill country, Federated Farmers national vicepresident Andrew Hoggard said.
He said a rising carbon price created an incentive for speculators to buy up farms and plant it with trees – with no intention of ever harvesting them.
The subsequent loss of jobs, families and schools would hollow out communities and make it a ‘‘nightmare’’ to turn back into productive farmland in the future, he said.
Beef and Lamb New Zealand voiced similar concerns. It took issue with an amendment to the Climate Change Response Act, the emissions trading reform bill that was introduced in December and was followed by six weeks of consultation.
Beef and Lamb made a submission to the select committee, expressing concern about a lack of safeguards in the legislation to limit the amount of offsetting that could take place under the emissions trading scheme (ETS).
‘‘Polluters can make the business decision to offset their emissions instead of reducing them,’’ environment policy manager Dylan Muggeridge said. The act was the main piece of legislation to govern the country’s response to climate change, and it was important it covered industry concerns, he said.
The reforms being rushed through would have significant consequences for sheep and beef farmers, chief executive Sam Mcivor said. It was calling for explicit limits to be placed on carbon farming through the ETS for offsetting to protect the sector, which represented about 92,000 jobs.
About 70,000 hectares of productive sheep and beef land had been converted to forestry since 2019, and carbon-related investment was a major driver, Mcivor said.
Climate Change Minister James Shaw said protections had already been build into the act. There was a mandatory requirement for the climate change commission to consider the effect of land-use change on regional communities and for the Government to do the same when responding to it, he said.
However, Muggeridge said there was nothing in the legislation requiring the Government to implement the advice of the commission.
‘‘The Climate Change Commission said that themselves in their select committee presentation,’’ he noted.
Beef and Lamb was seeking legal advice on the adequacy of the existing provisions.
Shaw said a Government working group looking at the need to limit forestry within the ETS was due to report back to Cabinet later this year.
‘‘The evidence of history is there and so you can see why they are worried about this. People will pay to continue to pollute,’’ Shaw said.
However, the carbon market had never been allowed to function properly, due to the price being capped at $25 [a tonne of CO ], he said.
The Government had introduced a minimum carbon price of $20 a tonne and a new upper reserve price of $50 a tonne to be used in carbon credit auctioning, that would rise with inflation. The changes would ensure the market operated within that price range, based on supply and demand.
The $50 limit was there so that if prices reach that level, more units could be released into the system to bring it back down beneath that upper threshold.
As the price of carbon rose, it would initially result in more forestry, but at a certain point it would become cheaper for industry to swap out carbon offsets for new technology, Shaw said.
Property Brokers rural general manager Conrad Wilkshire said while it was true that premiums were being offered by carbon investors, in many cases the properties in question had no other buyers, particularly those in remote locations.
Farmers could benefit from the new policy by introducing plantations on their land, he said.
‘‘If farmers can integrate the carbon plan into their own business model they stand to potentially reap the biggest gain. If they stand aside from it then ultimately their whole farms are going to go to trees. The policy settings are going to be there to 2030 because both [parties] have signed up to it,’’ he said.
Grant said he wanted the Government to ditch the ETS to preserve productive pastoral land and the jobs that came with it, and instead invest more in renewable energy projects.