Farms versus forests fight: No winners

THIS WHOLE ‘FARMS VERSUS FORESTS’ THING THAT HAS BEEN PLAYING out in the mass media recently smacks of political agendas. It’s the government that farmers are targeting, but we forestry folk are getting caught in the crossfire.

And I find it really unhelpful.

Farmers should actually be working with foresters for the good of us all, not painting us as the bad guys.

I can totally understand where they are coming from. They feel targeted by a green-washed Government that is blaming all farmers for our dirty rivers and lakes, and believe it wants to make them pay. And then heap more costs onto farmers by including them in the ETS scheme. To rub salt into the wounds, they reckon the rules allowing foreign owners to buy big farms and cover them with trees are too liberal and will “empty” rural areas of their populations.

So they are fighting back, as anyone would when they feel like they are backed into a corner.

But they are using forestry as a whipping boy to make their arguments heard in the media and they aren’t afraid of bending the truth to get their points across. For instance, the 50 Shades of Green ginger group seemed to deliberately misconstrue a Radio New Zealand report that a foreign-owned forestry company (Sydney-based New Forests) had been allowed to purchase more than 77,000 hectares of “good Kiwi farmland in just four years”.

Absolute bollocks. New Forests has mostly purchased existing forests, including those of the Hikurangi Forest Farms business that it bought earlier this year.

50 Shades of Green’s Andy Scott then says: “Is the government happy that New Zealand is reducing its food production capacity to the extent it is.

“We’re selling the family silver with what can only be described as indecent haste.”

He evades the fact that much of the “foreign-owned” land was already foreign owned and already under trees. The bare farmland that has been purchased to turn into forests in recent times amounts to a very small amount. Nowhere near 77,000 hectares.

It’s politics at play and truth is often forgotten in the process.

What I would say to Mr Scott and his friends – and, indeed, to all farmers – is that forestry is not your enemy. We’re all in the same boat in one way or another and we can help each other. We’re facing environmental and social licence challenges of our own and trying to overcome them.

It’s a fact that a number of sheep and beef farms on steep, rugged country struggle to earn their keep. Some of that land would be better planted in trees, where it will earn more money than livestock for the farmer and also help to keep erosion-prone hillsides intact. And it would help offset any ETS charges they may face in the future.

Trees do not belong on good, productive farmland, but they do have a place in other locations.

So when farmers march on parliament on November 14 as part of their planned protests, maybe they should drop in to the Forest Owners Association offices on the way and have a chat about how we can help each other.

NZL