Counting sheep for signs of life after dairy
OPINION: Back in 1982, there were about 70 million sheep in New Zealand. Today, there are about 28 million, the lowest number since the 1930s.
Had a report 35 years ago said the country should cull more than 40 million animals, there would have been outrage and disbelief.
This week, a new study argued environmental constraints and changing global food preferences had implications for dairying that should drive major land use changes over coming decades.
That was reported by some media as meaning New Zealand should cull 35 million cows.
The report from London-based Vivid Economics said nothing of the sort, although the sheep example shows such changes can occur within a generation.
The decline in the national flock took place in response to two fundamental forces: the removal of government subsidies and the collapse in demand for both wool and sheepmeat.
For many farmers, that was a very painful adjustment – especially the swift removal of subsidies. But for many other farmers, the reduction by close to two-thirds in the number of New Zealand sheep was a slow, rational process of deciding the best use for their land in light of market conditions.
That is really all the Vivid Economics report is suggesting, but with one important overlay. That is, the push created by New Zealand’s commitments to reduce its carbon emissions in the short term and the long-term goal of achieving ‘‘net zero emissions’’ in the second half of this century.
Like the Energy Council 2050 scenarios produced last year by the New Zealand Sustainable Business Council, the Vivid report sets out to help policymakers, business decision-makers and the public think about the future by painting broad scenarios.
Some commentators misinterpreted the energy-sector scenarios as ‘‘lacking ambition’’ because they had included ongoing use of fossil fuels, failing to see that this was a parameter in a scenario, not a prediction. Some of the reaction to the Vivid report has made the same mistake and taken the outlook for pastoral farming as a hard and fast recommendation.
However, the Vivid report appears to have more capacity to make a difference to the New Zealand debate on climate change than either the Energy Council work or, say, the report that Vivid did for business lobby group Pure Advantage in 2012.
That is because the latest report has a set of clear recommendations as well as an unusual degree of cross-parliamentary backing.
Using skills learnt in his former career as a diplomat, Green MP Kennedy Graham has succeeded in issuing a politically challenging report under the auspices of the Globe-NZ cross-parliamentary consensus group, which he has quietly knitted together over the past couple of years. Some three dozen of our 121 MPs belong to the group, which is the local chapter of a global movement for political consensus on climate change action. Every political party in Parliament is represented.
Partly as a result of that broad church, endorsements for the report have flowed from industry and environmental lobbies.
It is a further sign after the emergence of cross-party consensus on ‘‘swimmable’’ rivers that there may be more political cohesion in environmental policymaking than the current fiascos over freshwater and Resource Management Act reform might suggest.
However, the Vivid report does come with huge challenges.
To meet our climate change commitments, New Zealand will have to hope for technology breakthroughs that make cows emit less methane; accept that we are probably at ‘‘peak dairy’’ already; and will need to pursue value over volume in future.
It will need to be willing to let a lot more of New Zealand disappear under plantation pine forests than is already the case.
Better to start now, though, than to have the future thrust upon us. –BusinessDesk
To meet our climate change commitments, New Zealand will have to accept that we are probably at "peak dairy".