Push on to get log levy voted in

Opponents of the proposed commodity levy on harvested logs have been described as shortsighted and having their heads buried in the sand.

The Forestry Owners' Association wants to introduce a compulsory commodity levy on harvested logs to ensure all those who benefit from the association's work contribute financially to its communication, policy development and research.

While some forest owners have labelled the levy as "just another tax", Forestry Industry Contractors Association chief executive John Stulen said it would level the playing field.

"Any shortsighted farm foresters who complain that the proposed commodity levy for forestry is just another tax do not understand how modern markets or industries operate and have their heads in the sand."

A referendum on the levy will be conducted among forest owners starting this month, with voting closing mid-March. If the result favours a compulsory contribution, an application will be made for the levy to apply from July this year.

The association is funded by a membership fee and targeted levy, but many of New Zealand's thousands of small forest owners do not contribute, resulting in calls that the current system is inequitable because non-paying growers benefit from the contributions of those who do pay.

Stulen said commodity levies had been a fact of life in most agricultural industries for many years, with farmers of all types benefiting from collective action, strategic vision and action by banding together.

"If the proposed levy goes ahead forestry, as an industry, has the chance ... to take a huge strategic step forward. The commodity levy will ensure small growers pay their fair share of costs that are currently being borne by only the larger growers."

Since the disestablishment of the Government's forest service in 1987, he said owners of large forests had, by and large, organised and planned industry responses to biosecurity risks, including co-ordinating industry and government responses to pest incursions.

"The wealth of knowledge that has been built up over the years in forest management, biosecurity and market-awareness has come from the members of the New Zealand Forest Owners Association's own voluntary membership fees."

Stulen also pointed to funding for industry training that had come from association members.

"It is shortsighted and self-serving of any farmer with forestry to argue with the logic of a commodity levy - it is quite an affordable system, as all of the costs for industry standards for planting, growing, tending and harvesting a forest will only need to be paid for by a levy upon harvest.

"It would have been quite a bit more logical for forest owners to pay part of the proposed levy upon planting - so I think the proposal, which is to pay on harvest, is actually quite lenient."