It will run FEP workshops for small groups of farmers. BOPRC is willing to help out with advice and subsidies to get work started.
James Parsons, Chairman of Beef +Lamb NZ, emailed farmers to outline under the new Government arrangement, and what some of the implications will be for sheep and beef farmers.
These issues are now right at our back door. We as farmers need to front foot these issues ... There will be a lot more to come about what we need to do in this space.
Water tax
The water tax proposed by Labour has become a royalty paid by exporters of bottled water.
This is good news for farmers relying on irrigation, but we will have to see how some of the challenges to the proposal - including who 'owns' water in the first place - plays out.
As the policy around this is thought through, we will need to stay part of the debate as we can only be sure that a water tax is off the agenda for this three-year term.
The Supply Agreement focuses on freshwater quality improvement, and specifically mentions stronger regulatory instruments and stricter enforcement of the Resource Management Act.
We are supportive of freshwater quality improvement, but the risk here is that a one-size-fits-all approach is taken. B+LNZ will continue to develop and promote an approach to improving freshwater quality, identifying and managing the specific issues faced on-farm or in a catchment. We need to invest in actions that make a difference, not in uniform requirements that everyone has to do.
A positive from the Supply Agreement is a focus on promoting diverse and sustainable land use. Optimising land use is something that we have long advocated for, and diversity is key.
Climate change
Under the agreements, there would be a Zero Carbon Act and an independent Climate Commission - both based around a United Kingdom model.
This model sets a total allowable amount of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions over a five-year period, and sets the limit for each five-year period 15 years in advance. The limits are legally binding through legislation to give certainty about targets that stretches longer than election cycles.
Certainty helps with investment decisions, which can be positive. But there are some clear risks for sectors with limited opportunity to reduce emissions. On the limited detail available, it seems that agriculture would be excluded unless and until the Climate Commission recommended its inclusion.
If that happened, agriculture would only be liable for 5 per cent of its GHG emissions, with the money generated from that going to mitigation research and tree planting.
This last point - tree planting - appears in many places in the agreements and this is going to be a significant challenge for the sector over the next three years. There is a place for trees, but not at the expense of productive hill country farmland.
We will be urging the new Government to recognise what sheep and beef farms already contribute to carbon sequestration - through shelter belts, wooded gullies, and permanent pastures - before looking to sheep and beef farmers to retire productive land into forestry.
