Beef exporters will need to prove to the EU that their products have not come from land that was recently deforested. Photo / Meat Industry Association
Beef exporters will need to prove to the EU that their products have not come from land that was recently deforested. Photo / Meat Industry Association
By Monique Steele of RNZ
Agriculture Minister Todd McClayhas apologised to New Zealand’s top beef exporters for extra costs they are likely to face because of the European Union’s new anti-deforestation rules.
Exporters sending products such as beef, leather or logs will have to prove their products have notcome from land that was recently deforested.
Despite fierce opposition from New Zealand industry groups and government officials, the European Union Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) appears to be going ahead.
From the end of the year, all exporters to the EU will be required to prove that forested land has not been cut down for animals to graze on since 2020.
It was announced this week that the Meat Industry Association, Beef + Lamb and an analytics firm were developing aerial and satellite-generated farm maps, as well as compiling the movement of livestock.
The New Zealand Deforestation Map initiative was to help the sector prepare the documents and data needed with each shipment of their products to the EU from December 31.
The regulation was expected to affect $213 million in beef and leather exports to the EU and $100 million in wood products.
Minister ‘banging on the table’ for exemption
Agriculture Minister Todd McClay speaking at the Red Meat Sector Conference in Christchurch on Tuesday. Photo / RNZ, Monique Steele
McClay, the Minister for Agriculture, Forestry and Trade and Investment, told the Red Meat Sector Conference in Christchurch on Tuesday that companies should prepare for the incoming rules.
“Well done for preparing,” he said.
“I’m so very sorry this cost has been put upon you, because in my view it is unnecessary.
“Since we came to government, I have consistently said to the European Union we have standards, the equivalent to yours if not higher, so you should not be putting costs upon every single producer in New Zealand, and we have been looking for ways to find exemptions or to changes, or to get the cost down.”
McClay wrote to the European Commission last year and said he met one of the commissioners in Brussels last month, who suggested other countries were also trying to gain exemptions, such as France.
“You’d figure when the EU member states don’t like something, perhaps there’s a change coming,” McClay said.
New Zealand already had rules protecting native forests, and penalties for offending.
“They [the EU] have nothing to worry about in New Zealand.
“You’re not allowed to deforest native forests in New Zealand.
“Ultimately, I, as the Government, can give an absolute assurance that it doesn’t happen because we prosecute, we go and find these things.”
He said the new regime was likely to impose “unreasonable” costs on producers, creating a barrier to trade, despite New Zealand’s free-trade agreement with the EU.
“So you need to keep preparing in case they don’t get there, but we’re gonna keep banging the table.”
Mapping farms and tracking livestock
Industry analytics firm Prism Earth is a partnership between Silver Fern Farms and Lynker Analytics, launched to meet the increased demand for carbon traceability, its website says.
It uses satellite imagery, aerial photography, remote laser sensing and artificial intelligence to map farms and identify grazing areas and forests. It also tracks animals via the National Animal Identification and Tracing (Nait) programme.
Managing director Matt Lythe, who also spoke at the red meat industry event, said the challenge was to accurately understand the conversion of land and animal movements.
“Every consignment will need to have a due diligence statement that essentially monitors every Nait tag, every animal and its passage through the New Zealand landscape and the grazing process through all its dimensions, and whether it’s past deforested land or not.
“There are some record-keeping requirements that need to be held in place for five years, so it’s a reasonably onerous obligation on us all to achieve.”
Its modelling showed there were just under 14,000 hectares of beef production farmland to October 2024 from which forests had been removed, and 1600 “affected Nait” farms.
“So headline number, just under 14,000 hectares have had forest removal,” he told the conference.
The main types of removal were pine rotation, followed by woodlots, then shelterbelts.
The modelling showed 32 hectares of indigenous forest were removed, affecting 24 farms.
“I’ve highlighted the indigenous loss as really the key critical area that we’re focusing on.
“Thirty-two hectares of indigenous forest in New Zealand has been removed that breaches that European rule.”
Owners of farms deemed to have been deforested would need to demonstrate to Prism that the removal of trees was not to convert land for agricultural use.
Lythe said farmers could mitigate the risk of cattle crossing into deforested land through fencing or other controls, and demonstrate that the removal of trees was due to either animal welfare, erosion control, health and safety or conservation and biodiversity protection.
The New Zealand Deforestation Map will be updated before December and updated every year.
