Editorial

A rock and a hard place

THE banning of live cattle shipments offers a glimpse into the possible future of trade agreements and their impact on New Zealand’s farming practices.

The ban has been pilloried as economic vandalism, lacking in scientific basis and pandering to pressure groups antagonistic to farming.

Those may all be valid criticisms, but they also display a tin ear to increasing scrutiny of environmental and animal welfare standards by trading partners.

The European Commission last year signalled it will override its 2019 trade agreement with the Mercosur group of South American countries to counter concerns from activists about the deforestation of the Amazon.

Meanwhile, animal welfare standards are featuring increasingly prominently in the EU’s planet-saving Green Deal, which previously had focused on cutting carbon emissions.

In such a climate, it is not hard to imagine European farming lobbies having raced to jump into bed with animal rights groups to oppose a trade deal with NZ were it to have continued with live cattle shipments.

Never mind that the EU is a substantial participant in the live export trade itself – consistency never being the dominant concern for European trade negotiators capable of preaching the value of free trade one moment, while refusing to budge on eye-wateringly high tariffs the next.

Whereas trade negotiations traditionally concerned areas subject to decades of scientific agreement, such as food safety, NZ exporters now fret they are increasingly straying into those not yet proven by science and instead governed by emotion.

With this background in mind, exporters last week cautiously welcomed recommendations to the British government to open up to food imports produced under the same environmental and animal welfare standards its own farmers are subject to.

NZ exporters are adamant the standards must be science-backed and not simply a means to keep imports out.

Recognition of existing animal welfare and environmental regulations as equivalent to UK ones, where they produce the same outcomes, is also seen as vital.

The Government faces a difficult task managing the tension between the increasingly urgent need to lessen dependence on China through new trade agreements and keeping existing farming and export practises intact as much as possible.

Nigel Stirling

LETTERS Writer misses the point

I HARDLY know where to begin with Andrew Luddington’s recent letter. He applies an argument Laura Henderson did not make, to prove her wrong on a stance she did not take.

Inexplicably, Andrew broke the emissions down to a per person level to give China permission to do nothing about climate change. If you take a countrywide approach as Laura did, China emits 26% of the world’s greenhouse gases (GHG), America contributes 14%, and little New Zealand emits 0.17%. It’s obvious where the larger burden for change lies.

The issue isn’t that the ‘fattest of fat cats’ of the world spend millions to pollute billions and we just do nothing. The issue is that so long as the wealthiest 10% of the global population are allowed to emit 50% of the GHG emissions, then whatever changes we make will achieve nothing to maintain warming below 1.5degC.

If we have a carbon budget that NZ must live within, then Tradeable Energy Quotas are an equalising solution.

Households are given a quota of fossil fuel units they can use to stay within the emissions’ budget and any excess can be traded to businesses or other households. This creates a common sense of purpose for both urban and rural NZ – because there’s a fixed cap, rather than taxes and offsetting options, all parties will need to find creative solutions to lower their footprint.

Andrew argues that ‘Farming is simply going to change’, but there is no positive, practical action farmers can take to be found within the Climate Change Commission’s advice document. Where other countries such as France, Australia, America, Brazil and the United Kingdom have policies and suggestions for lower carbon farming – silvopasture, notill cropping, adaptive multipaddock grazing, hedgerows, woodlots, all part of the solution – NZ has the great idea to just kill livestock until the accounting balances out and somehow this won’t affect food production. I suppose for a wee while there will be an excess of red meat to export?

Yes, we do have a responsibility to decarbonise the economy and there is plenty NZ can and should do to address climate change – regulation of the advertising that drives over consumption, banning SUVs, ban lawns, investing in public transport, regulating fast fashion, moving towards car-free cities, and legislating longer lifespans and rights to repair of technology, to name just a handful. None of these changes involve planting more pine trees. Sacrificing sheep and beef farming, and planting more forestry to offset fossil fuel industries is not a solution.

Nicky White Hawke’s Bay

Farmers Weekly is published by GlobalHQ, PO Box 529, Feilding 4740. New Zealand Phone: 0800 85 25 80 Website: www.farmersweekly.co.nz EDITOR Bryan Gibson 06 323 1519

bryan.gibson@globalhq.co.nz EDITORIAL Carmelita Mentor-Fredericks 06 323 0769 editorial@globalhq.co.nz Neal Wallace 03 474 9240 neal.wallace@globalhq.co.nz Colin Williscroft 027 298 6127 colin.williscroft@globalhq.co.nz Annette Scott 021 908 400 annette.scott@globalhq.co.nz Hugh Stringleman 09 432 8594 hugh.stringleman@globalhq.co.nz Gerald Piddock 027 486 8346 gerald.piddock@globalhq.co.nz Richard Rennie 07 552 6176 richard.rennie@globalhq.co.nz Nigel Stirling 021 136 5570 nigel.g.stirling@gmail.com PUBLISHER Dean Williamson 027 323 9407 dean.williamson@globalhq.co.nz ADVERTISING Andy Whitson 027 626 2269 New Media & Business Development Lead andy.whitson@globalhq.co.nz Steve McLaren 027 205 1456 Auckland/Northland advertising steve.mclaren@globalhq.co.nz Jody Anderson 027 474 6094 Waikato/Bay of Plenty advertising jody.anderson@globalhq.co.nz Donna Hirst 027 474 6095 Lower North Island/international advertising donna.hirst@globalhq.co.nz Ernest Nieuwoudt 027 474 6091 South Island advertising ernest.nieuwoudt@globalhq.co.nz Clint Dunstan 027 474 6004 Real Estate & Farm Machinery advertising clint.dunstan@globalhq.co.nz ISSN 2463-6002 (Print) ISSN 2463-6010 (Online) Ella Holland 06 323 0761 Livestock advertising 027 602 4925 livestock@globalhq.co.nz Debbie Brown 06 323 0765 Classifi eds/Employment advertising classifi eds@globalhq.co.nz Grant Marshall 027 887 5568 AgriHQ Partnership Manager grant.marshall@globalhq.co.nz Andrea Mansfi eld 027 446 6002 Salesforce director andrea.mansfi eld@globalhq.co.nz Steph Holloway 06 323 0142 AgriHQ Commercial Leader steph.holloway@globalhq.co.nz PRODUCTION Lana Kieselbach 027 739 4295 production@globalhq.co.nz Advertising material adcopy@globalhq.co.nz SUBSCRIPTIONS 0800 85 25 80 subs@globalhq.co.nz Printed by Ovato NZ Ltd Delivered by Reach Media Ltd