PRESIDENT’S WORD
He Waka Eke Noa – What it means for growers He Waka Eke Noa (HWEN) represents a partnership between primary industries, government and Māori agribusiness, that is trying to find ways of reducing agricultural emissions while maintaining sustainable food and fibre production and profitability. Barry O’Neil : HortNZ president
And therein lies the issue: reducing emissions while maintaining food and fibre productivity and profitability without yet having all the tools needed to achieve this. It was always going to be a challenge! The primary sector is still the major player in our economy, with over 80 percent of our exports and 11 percent of gross domestic profit (GDP) coming from it – including through the Covid-19 pandemic. The last thing we would want to see as a country is HWEN forcing the food and fibre sector to shrink. Primary industries have always been committed to doing their very best to mitigate the impacts of climate change – we just didn’t want to be taxed. We didn’t want an approach and pricing mechanism that was focused primarily on revenue collection, but rather one that would support improved practices and behaviours and invest any revenue in finding new tools to maintain and increase production levels and profitability with lower emission levels. The HWEN partnership was formed in response to the government’s plan for primary industries to begin paying a price on emissions. It was the only opportunity to find an alternative to government putting agriculture into the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), which would be the tax approach we didn’t want.
HWEN partners considered and consulted on various options with the key elements of split gases (methane priced lower than nitrous oxide as it is a shorter-lived gas) and providing for sequestration to offset emissions. A farm level split gas pricing mechanism was supported by sector partners, which includes: • Calculating short (methane) and long-lived (nitrous and carbon dioxide) emissions. • Recognition of on farm efficiencies and mitigations, along with incentivising use of approved practices and technologies that reduce emissions. • On farm sequestration ineligible for the ETS available to offset the cost of the emissions levy. • Levy revenue is reinvested in research, development and extension. • An oversight Board with expertise and representation from the primary sector providing recommendations on levy rates and who sets the strategy for use of levy revenue. HWEN has a logical focus on pastoral farming as they are by far the largest agriculture emitters. Horticulture, by contrast, contributes less than one percent of New Zealand’s total agriculture emissions.
New Zealand has already passed climate law, the Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Act 2019, establishing long-term emission targets, the mandate for emissions budgets and an independent Climate Change Commission to advise government. The bill passed unanimously, meaning all political parties supported it, not only Labour and the Greens.
The thresholds agreed upon for animal numbers and levels of fertiliser use account for 97 percent of all agriculture emissions. Rather than add to the complexity and administration costs by requiring all farmers and growers to comply with the system, it was logical the focus would be on the largest group of emitters. This isn’t picking on the largest farmers and growers, rather it is an efficiency argument that still achieves the emissions reductions without cumbersome and large administration costs.
Targets have now been set in law, including a net greenhouse gas emissions target of zero by 2050, reducing methane emissions by up to 47 percent and requiring biogenic emissions from agriculture (methane and nitrous oxide) to have a carbon price in place from 2025.
This equates to less than 200 growers who will be involved, as most don’t use more than 40 tonnes of nitrogen per
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The ORCHARDIST : JULY 2022
For horticulture, growers who apply over 40 tonnes of nitrogen through synthetic fertiliser per year will be liable to pay a levy under HWEN.
