Call for farm forestry limits
A significant amount of productive sheep and beef farmland has been converted to forestry over recent years, reinforcing the need for limits on carbon farming, according to Beef + Lamb NZ.
The organisation, which represents the country’s sheep and beef farmers, commissioned rural consultancy BakerAg to look at the extent of farmland being sold for forestry. The report estimated about 26,550 hectares of the
77,800ha of farms sold into forestry since 2017 were to carbononly entities, or about 34 per cent.
While polluters can offset their emissions by planting trees, the system has been criticised for failing to provide enough incentives for them to reduce their emissions, and for not taking into account the impact on productive land and rural communities.
The Climate Change Commission has called for a higher carbon price, to encourage a faster reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. However, it is also concerned that a high price would prompt too much land to be converted into forestry.
According to the BakerAg report, 3965ha of whole sheep and beef farms were sold into forestry in 2017, increasing to 20,227ha in
2018 and 36,824ha in 2019. The sales volume slipped to 16,764ha in
2020, probably due to Covid-19, but it appeared to have gathered momentum this year and was moving into new regions.
Beef + Lamb noted Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor has said the Government may intervene if land conversions reach
40,000ha a year. That threshold was close in 2019, and limits were ‘‘urgently needed’’, it said.
The BakerAg report notes that on average between 2018 and 2020, more than 29,500ha a year was intended to be changed into exotic forestry, exceeding the 25,000ha of annual plantings advised by the
Climate Change Commission. ‘‘Without urgent action, the sale of sheep and beef farms into forestry will only accelerate as the carbon price increases, and fossil fuel emitters will continue to receive a ‘get out of jail’ free card and not change their behaviour,’’ said Beef + Lamb chief executive Sam McIvor.
‘‘This is a critical issue for our sector,’’ he said, noting that it was one of the seven key concerns in the recent Groundswell farmer protests. It’s threatening rural communities and undermining New Zealand’s future economic viability.’’
McIvor said 64 per cent of forestry planting was on low-erosion or moderate-erosion land, which was often highly productive hill country. ‘‘This idea that wholesale land conversion is happening on hills that aren’t productive, that are prone to slipping away, isn’t borne out by the evidence.’’
Hill country was the ‘‘lifeblood’’ of the sheep and beef sector, and was where most lambs and calves were born before being finished on lower land.
Beef + Lamb supported the integration of trees on farms rather than whole farms being converted to forestry, he said.
Between 2018 and 2020, more than 47,000ha of land on sheep and beef farms was approved under two government schemes for conversion into exotic and native trees, and there was likely to have been additional private planting outside the schemes, he said. ‘‘It’s an opportunity for a win-win situation where New Zealand can meet its climate obligations and still maintain livestock production.’’
Beef + Lamb estimates the shift of productive land to exotic forestry over the past three years has reduced stock numbers by 700,000, with implications for processing companies and supplying services. The organisation wants the Government to work with the sector to introduce limits on forestry offsets.