DairyNZ has concerns about the Government's consultation document, Te tātai utu o ngā tukunga ahuwhenua - Pricing Agricultural Emissions. Photo / 123rf
DairyNZ has concerns about the Government's consultation document, Te tātai utu o ngā tukunga ahuwhenua - Pricing Agricultural Emissions. Photo / 123rf
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Kiwi farmers are a step closer to an agricultural emissions pricing system but there is still work to be done to make sure it is fair and practical, DairyNZ says.
Yesterday, the Government announced a world-first scheme that will see farmers paying for agriculturalemissions in some form by 2025.
The consultation document, Te tātai utu o ngā tukunga ahuwhenua - Pricing Agricultural Emissions, on the scheme, says it will be introduced in just three years and is expected to be signed off by Cabinet in 2023.
DairyNZ chair Jim van der Poel said it was good to see the Government had accepted some key recommendations from the He Waka Eke Noa Partnership, which were informed by farmer feedback.
"Emissions will be priced at farm level and they've bedded in the split gas approach and we're not going into the ETS," he told The Country's Rowena Duncum.
DairyNZ is also pleased that levy revenue will be recycled to farmers through technology, research and incentive payments.
However, Van der Poel said the Government had also made significant changes that would be a focus for the sector during the six-week consultation.
"One part that we don't like and we don't really agree with…is how the price is going to be set."
DairyNZ is also disappointed the Government has removed the ability for farmers to form collectives to work together to report, reduce or offset their emissions – an important mechanism that would drive the change that is needed.
DairyNZ also strongly disagrees with changes made to limit the recognition and reward farmers will get for their on-farm planting.
Removing classes of sequestration such as shelterbelts, woodlots and scattered trees, was unfair to farmers, Van der Poel said.
"If they've got trees or riparian planting or shelterbelts … on their farm that's helping New Zealand meet its commitments – why can't that all be recognised?
"We don't understand that part of it."
Van der Poel was concerned the positive effects of on-farm sequestration didn't fit with the Government's ideological narrative.
"If there's a fundamental reason why they don't want it in there...then we need to understand what that is."
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He hoped the scheme wouldn't push farmers to quit and therefore leave productive farmland to be bought as carbon sinks.
New Zealand farmers were already the most carbon-efficient producers in the world, so the knock-on effect of this would be detrimental, Van der Poel said.
"If there are any instances where we export our production - because we reduce here and somebody else globally picks it up that's less carbon efficient - that's bad for New Zealand and that's bad for the world.
"From a New Zealand point of view we lose that revenue and from a global point of view, you actually are not contributing to global cooling - you're contributing to global warming."
Of course, farmers chose who they sold their farms to but the reason should be market-driven, not legislatively driven, he said.
"We think that would be a very poor outcome."
Government consultation is now open and will run for six weeks, with the final decision to be announced in December.
