Partnership is not a silver bullet for reducing deer industry emissions
Deer farmers may not have many options to reduce greenhouse gases under the He Waka Eke Noa partnership that most benefits intensive farm systems.
He Waka Eke Noa – Primary Sector Climate Action Partnership may not be the right fit for the deer industry.
John Somerville, Deer Farmers Association chairman, said extensive deer farms would be penalised by the partnership’s preferred approach of calculating emissions per kilogram of agricultural product produced. This approach favoured intensive farming systems where farmers brought resources onto the farm, like fertiliser or feed, to improve performance.
Extensive deer operations generally had low inputs, such as nitrogen fertilisers, and also produced less. Such operations would benefit from an approach that calculated emissions per hectare. This approach was not currently considered under the partnership, Somerville said.
He Waka Eke Noa worked with farmers and growers to find an alternative to the emissions trading scheme that grouped all green house gas emissions under the same umbrella.
The goal of an emission scheme should be to drive farming practice changes. This was difficult on extensive deer farms where the stocking rate were close to optimal and inputs were minimal, Somerville said.
The partnership left deer farmers no options for farming practice changes and as a result they could only reduce stock numbers or plant carbon forest on land that was already used optimally, he said.
‘‘You are putting trees on low emitting land to keep intensive, high emitting operations going. It is not driving farming practice changes, he said.
Under He Waka Eke Noa emissions for deer were also calculated based on data received from overseas, with no accurate measurements on how much greenhouse gases deer emitted undertaken in New Zealand, Somerville said.
He Waka Eke Noa did not consider different stock classes, their weights, and how different classes produced greenhouse gases differently, but worked on averages. Averages would not accurately reflect greenhouse gas emissions, Somerville said.
He said the industry were placing their hopes into research and development of, for example, feed inhibitors that reduced methane emissions. However, different types of animals reacted differently to such inhibitors and this option might not be fit for purpose for deer.
Under the partnership farmers would be subject to the brunt of the carbon price. Farmers who needed to offset some emissions by buying carbon credits would not be able to plan their budget appropriately as any forecast on emissions were not always accurate and was controlled by the government, Somerville said.
Somerville said farmers should receive credit for plantings they made since 1990, and not just from 2008.
He agreed that the He Waka Eke Noa’s split gas approach, that treated short-lived methane gases and long-lived nitrous oxide and carbon dioxide differently, was a better alternative to the emissions trading scheme that treated all gases the same.
He was waiting to see what how the public feedback from He Waka Eke Noa, expected in late May, would include proposals made by the deer industry.
Some farmers in the deer industry were working on alternative options to the partnership he said.