Farmers urged to have say as deadline looms
Fears over impact of emissions plan on rural communities
Tomorrow is the final day for farmers to provide feedback on the Government’s recommendations to reduce agricultural greenhouse gas emissions and to build the sector’s resilience to climate change.
On October 10, the Government announced its response to He Waka Eke Noa’s (Primary Sector Climate Action Partnership) recommendations on a variety of issues including agricultural emissions, pricing and recognition of sequestration.
The Government’s response led to widespread anger and protests from farmers who felt the recommendations did not align with what the sector sought.
Northland farmer Andrew Booth said he now felt unsure about the future for the industry.
A third-generation dairy farmer, Booth’s 395 cows are used exclusively for milking at his farm in Titoki, about half an hour west of Whangarei.
Booth said the proposals had created a lot of confusion and he believed many farmers, particularly beef and sheep, would be harshly affected by the proposals.
“The biggest thing coming out of this is the uncertainty it has created across the primary sector because what’s been recommended is certainly not what we put forward to the Government,” Booth said.
“The initial document, for example, included a formula that calculated each farm emission, which included incentives to try and reduce the carbon sequestered on your farm.
“What’s come back does not include that initial formula, and while they’re saying it’s still available through another channel, it’s going to be a much more complicated process.”
According to Booth, farmers were limited in what they could do to reduce carbon emissions.
He said they could improve farm practices and efficiencies, but there wasn’t yet the scope to reduce emissions by 25-30 per cent “overnight”.
Booth said the main concern for a lot of people right now, however, was that the changes could sound the death knell for small, rural communities where farming was the lifeblood of the local economy.
“It’s a fine line trying to strike a balance between the direction of travel we need to take and doing it in a way that’s not going to adversely affect rural communities and populations,” he said. “We are worldleading farmers, so this needs to be more a matter of trying to promote emission-efficient farming, not destroying New Zealand agriculture.
“As the largest contributor to the New Zealand GDP, if agriculture hurts, then our economy hurts too.”
DairyNZ was involved in the He Waka Eke Noa consultation and backed Booth’s concerns about the recommendations’ potential impact on rural communities.
Chairman, Jim van der Poel, said the Government’s emissions-pricing proposal threatened the viability of farming businesses and was not acceptable.
“DairyNZ is committed to securing a fair pricing system for farmers and we would like to see the Government revert to the He Waka Eke Noa recommendations put forward in May,” said van der Poel.
“He Waka Eke Noa was designed as a whole farm system approach to reduce emissions, meet targets and give fair recognition and reward for planting farmers have done on their farms.
“We believe the Government’s significant and unnecessary changes have undermined farmer confidence in the process and needlessly put the finely balanced cross-sector consensus at risk.
“We must reduce our emissions, but we can’t drive blindly towards targets at all costs. We have to remember why we are doing this in the first place.
“The Paris Agreement is about reducing global emissions, not just New Zealand’s emissions.”
On the He Waka Eke Noa website,
We are world-leading farmers, so this needs to be more a matter of
trying to promote emission-efficient farming, not destroying New Zealand agriculture.
Andrew Booth
programme director Kelly Forster said the agricultural sector was concerned about the impact of the Government’s proposals for agricultural emissions pricing, among other things.
She said the group was already having conversations with the Government about how to improve the proposals released by the Prime Minister.
“The Government’s proposals were a double-edged sword — progress from where we started three years ago, but some concerning changes from the approach that He Waka Eke Noa recommended in June,” she said.
“We started this journey when the Government passed a law requiring emissions reductions and legislating for agricultural emissions pricing by 2025.
“While nobody wants to see a new levy on farmers, it’s a fact that emissions pricing is coming and we have to work to make it as manageable as possible.”
Foster said those still arguing against efforts to reduce emissions were “ignoring reality” and that consumer expectations, locally and internationally, had shifted.
She said many competitors for New Zealand’s food and fibre products were setting net zero targets and working to lower emissions from food production, so New Zealand could not afford to stand still.
Another area where the Government’s proposals needed more work, Foster believed, was recognising
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