Hill country sheep and beef farms being targeted

Government should be working with rural communities to ensure farms for sale on vulnerable landscapes are kept in New Zealand ownership, says Rick Burke.

Hill country sheep and beef farms are being targeted to offset carbon emissions while our Government looks the other way.

Over the last few years there have been many articles written regarding carbon farming and the negative consequences for rural communities, and the long-term impact on biodiversity and freshwater.

As Dame Anne Salmond wrote recently, socially, culturally, ecologically and economically, carbon farming with pine trees looks like a monumental folly. Offsetting only makes sense if there are genuine benefits to New Zealand and the planet.

This is turning into a serious crisis for our rural communities, with the latest data out of in Gisborne district alone, since 2019 10 per cent of the effective farmed area - i.e. as much as 30,000ha - has gone out of farming into trees, of which 80 per cent has gone into pines either for carbon farming or for future harvest. Credit to Kerry Worsnop for this information.

Our forefathers who fought through World Wars I and II were certainly heroes in my eyes. They not only risked their lives fighting for our great country, but also most of them came home and did the hard yards, breaking in and developing our hill country into sheep and beef farms that we have built our lives and our economy around.

Now hill country farming as we know it is under serious threat by the scourge of those who are buying our hill country farms to offset carbon emissions.

ETS policy drivers make huge swathes of foreign-owned forests look uneconomic as production forests when compared with carbon forests. Who is going to make them harvest if it's more lucrative to sell to domestic permanent foresters who can claim the credits for decades longer?

Our forefathers would turn over in their graves if they knew that good farmland was going into permanent pine forest and land ownership going offshore while our Government procrastinates or looks the other way. I feel that this is a national disgrace.

We all know that when our forefathers broke in the land in many cases slashed and burnt a bit much, not thinking about the impacts of their actions on biodiversity and freshwater.

It has been our generation's responsibility to address those issues through our Farm Environmental Plans (FEP) which many farmers are now incorporating into their farming businesses to future proof their farms.

So instead of the Government letting our intellectual property go offshore, it should be working with rural communities to ensure farms for sale on vulnerable landscapes that also have suitable land classes for farming are kept in New Zealand ownership.

Government should be stepping in and buying these farms.

Rural communities would be stimulated by the Government funding the FEP and the redesign of those farms (right tree right place) and leasing them back to young farmers as the future farms of NZ!

Market prices for those farms could be based on the future opportunity for ecosystem services in the regions.

This would incentivise hill country farmers to focus their FEP thus realising the carbon opportunities on their own farms and at the same time improving biodiversity, freshwater and also the opportunity to improve profitability!

He Waka Eka noa (HWEN)

The second looming threat to our hill country sheep and beef farms is the HWEN Agricultural Emissions Pricing Proposal giving two options.

Option 1 - a Farm-Levy and Option 2 a Processor-Hybrid levy.

The HWEN options have been largely designed by government officials and the industry group partnership. What is apparent is that leading farmers have been largely shut out of having pragmatic input to the HWEN options.

So we have ended up with another 'top down' approach, delivering something that will not inspire farmers to really address climate change.

Option 2 — critically fails to meet two of key principles that HWEN must abide, being:

Integrated: Aligns with wider (environmental) sector and Government objectives and activities.

Equitable: Recognises early adopters, 'equitable' impacts across the agricultural sector.

Option 2 uses emissions and price averaging to determine a levy at the processor.

This is another version of grandparenting which means extensive hill country sheep and beef farms which many have stabilised or reduced their emissions are being used to offset emissions from intensive farms.

Option 2 puts added pressure on the viability of hill country farming which will lead to more large-scale afforestation at the expense of our hill country farms.

Environment Minister David Parker has said that he detests the principle of grandparenting being used in policy frameworks.

I'm sure this will present problems for the Industry groups to get Option 2 over the line! It also hints at continued business-as-usual for intensive farm systems!

I prefer a reworked Option 1. Option 1 is based on farm level emissions ie. methane plus nitrous oxide less your sequestration.

This option does not grandparent extensive farm systems, it is measured at a farmer level. Unfortunately, in its present form, it is unworkable but could be redesigned to be the favoured option!

At the end of the day, considering that HWEN options presented to farmers will be the most important decision they will make in a generation!

Therefore, we need farmers to be empowered to address climate change in a way that will give them a sense of wellbeing by making them feel in control, fosters and incentives becoming enthusiastic stewards of the land with real practical solutions to address climate change.

Hopefully, through the HWEN consultation process, the authors of the HWEN options and crucially James Shaw listens to the leading farmers and their recommended amendments to ensure the HWEN Agricultural Emissions Proposal takes a fair and equitable, integrated approach where 'farming fits the land'.

I believe, if we get this right by using the most up to date science and metrics, New Zealand will get international recognition, as world leading by contributing to climate cooling post - 2030.