5 minute read
Technology
In my view ... To cut emissions we need farmers on board
Todd Muller
National Party acting agriculture spokesperson
SHEEP and beef farmers are justified in their concern about the government’s plans, which would make their sector bear the biggest cost of reducing greenhouse gas emissions in agriculture.
Any sector in any industry facing a 20% reduction in size in order to achieve a government objective that the sector never asked for, would tell ministers to go away and return only when they have a fairer and less harmful proposal.
That is also National’s message to the government.
For the past three years, the He Waka Eke Noa partnership, involving representatives of the primary sector and other stakeholders, has been developing an agreed way to achieve emissions reductions with the least damage to the sector.
The partnership gave its report to the government in May but when the government responded publicly last week, its proposals were met with an outcry.
In particular, under the government’s proposals, its own modelling suggests up to 20% of the capacity of the sheep and beef sector could be lost overseas – to markets that will create higher emissions.
While New Zealand’s contribution to global emissions is not significant, as a small nation, we rely for our security and trade on countries acting together and playing by agreed rules.
The same principle applies to trying to limit the extent of global warming. All countries need to play a part.
Labour and National have both committed to the Paris Climate Agreement’s targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. New Zealanders are entitled to expect that, having made that commitment, governments will achieve it.
National does not believe that inflicting on the primary sector a regime that it does not support, is the way to achieve reduced emissions.
While Labour may consider that reducing beef and sheep farming by up to 20% is simply collateral damage on the way to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, National says that’s an unacceptable sacrifice.
All New Zealanders, even those who have never set foot on a farm, depend to some extent on the farming sector for their standard of living.
Overall, New Zealand’s primary sector is estimated to feed 40 million people in the world, and earn around $9000 in export revenue for every New Zealander. It is, by any measure, a vitally important part of the New Zealand economy.
Rural and provincial communities are also core to how New Zealanders think about their own country. To take a slice of that primary sector – sheep and beef farming – and cut it by up to a fifth by 2030, is simply far too high a cost and, in National’s view, unnecessary.
New Zealand farmers are already the most carbon-efficient in the world.
Producing a kilogram of milksolids from a Kiwi dairy farm will create fewer carbon emissions than a kilogram of milksolids produced in any other country.
The sophistication of farming in New Zealand is both a great starting point for emissions reductions, and shows that New Zealand farmers embrace science and technology.
This will be key to New Zealand achieving emissions reductions, and a National government will support new technology.
What will not help reduce global emissions would be for New Zealand to reduce sheep and beef farming, only for it to increase in countries which are not as carbon efficient.
That is like banning gas-fired power stations, only to replace them with coal-fired stations to meet electricity demand.
It makes no environmental sense and it would make the large sacrifice of New Zealand’s primary sector – of income and jobs – worthless.
Finally, when farmers will be paying a price for emissions from their farms, it is only fair that they should also be able to earn more from any climate-change initiatives they undertake, such as planting trees as shelter belts or windbreaks. That will allow farmers to partly offset their emissions costs with emissions mitigation.
National backs farmers. No one cares more about farmland than the people whose living depends upon it.
No one cares more about the outdoors than those who spend their days there. In the same way that farmers have taken responsibility for fencing stock off from waterways, I am confident they will accept responsibility for reducing emissions – but only as long as the regime feels fair. Right now, it doesn’t.
Most farmers, I believe, accept that the primary sector has an important role to play in reducing emissions, and that doing so requires a price being put on those emissions.
For emissions to reduce, farmers need to be invested in the process. Only with the primary sector’s support will a successful and enduring solution be possible.
A consultation programme has begun. National will heed farmers’ feedback. I suggest the government does the same.
REGIME: National’s acting agriculture spokesperson, Todd Muller, says inflicting a regime on the primary sector that it does not support is no way to achieve reduced emissions.
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