A recent article in the ODT “Rural Life” discusses the impact of forestry conversions from pasture to forestry. It comes as Beef + Lamb New Zealand report that sheep numbers have shown a slight increase on the previous going from 25.73 million last year to 25.78 million as of the end of June 2022. Given the number of farms sold for forestry conversions it may initially come as a surprise.
However, with the reduction of areas in drought last season there has been less pressure put on stocking rates and seemingly allowed more sheep to be carried through the balance day cut-off.
The other issue affecting numbers is the time lag between farm sales and land getting planted due to a lack of tree seedlings. Often the previous owner (or others) leases the land until seedlings are close to being in the ground.
Southland and Otago, which did have a dry season last summer and autumn, did show a sheep reduction with -3.9% and -1.7% respectively. Cattle numbers took a greater hit dropping -13.2% in Southland and a further -2.8% in Otago. The large Southland cattle drop no doubt having a large part to play with the -0.9% drop in cattle nationally.
Of particular interest was the results shown of the update of areas converted to forestry coming from the Overseas Investment Office (OIO). Earlier Beef + Lamb NZ had shown that in an independent report covering from January 1, 2017, to December 31, 2020, 139,500ha of land had gone to ‘forestry’ two-thirds, or 92,100ha was whole farm conversion to forestry, of which 14,300ha was manuka. One-third (47,400ha) was within farm forestry planting.
Since then, in 2021 another 16,340ha has been approved by the OIO for forestry conversion and by July 2022 an estimated total of 200,000ha has been targeted to go into forestry since June 2017.
The OIO has already approved 14,700 ha in the 6 months to July 2022 almost as much as in the whole of 2021.
In August 2022 the Government passed the 3rd reading of the Overseas Investment (Forestry) Amendment Bill. This Bill is supposed to provide more discretion to the OIO in turning down applications. Prior to this, overseas investments that result in conversion of land to production forestry could proceed through a simpler ‘special test relating to forestry activities’ (commonly known as the special forestry test) that provides little discretion to decision makers when they are assessing an investment. The new Bill requires overseas investments that result in conversion of land to production forestry to meet the ‘benefit to New Zealand’ test. The special forestry test has never applied to carbon forestry which must meet the Act’s more stringent test(s) and the Bill does not change this position.
The increase in OIO approvals earlier this year probably indicate investors are seeking to ‘beat’ the new ‘rules’ and perhaps a reflection of the growing interest of carbon forestry. A cynical person may wonder how many ‘production forests’ end up not being harvested, a concern of the Gisborne District Council. For those interested in looking further into the requirements those investing into forestry conversions the LINZ link and subsequent links will help fill the picture.
Getting back to stock numbers; it was expected that this amount of land area converted to trees would result in about 1.4 million stock units going. However, the reality. for now, is that the decline has (only) been -0.4 million since 2017 and most of that has occurred in the latter end of that period. This indicates the lag between land sales and livestock removal, as earlier mentioned, and it is expected livestock numbers will continue to decline post the slowdown or stopping of land conversions if that were ever likely to happen. So, the current lift in numbers in the case of sheep may only be a short lived aberration to the longer trend of numbers declining.
The Climate Change Commission estimated that 25,000ha per year would be required as a sustainable amount (along with other broader measures) of forestry conversions. Beef + Lamb NZ have estimated that in 2021 a total of over 37,000ha’s changed hands exceeding the 36,800ha of 2019. Hopefully the Agricultural minister's information is now more up to date than what he was quoting back in January so any Government response is made with the correct information. Beef + Lamb NZ are still calling for specific limits to be put on the amount of forestry that could be used to offset fossil fuel emissions. “New Zealand is the only country in the world with an ETS that allows unlimited forestry offsetting and both the Climate Change Commission and the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment have recommended that limits are needed.”
23 Comments
This is a really complex issue. I think that social impacts are an overlooked aspect of excessive forestry conversion. I moved to Northland in the early 80s, when extensive forestry conversion was occurring. The abandoned fences, gates, stockyards with young pines growing everywhere was eerie. Schools and small clusters of shops and houses left abandoned. I'm thinking of inland from Kaihu.
https://youtu.be/_uudBvMrORE?t=1395
Nzlandcare trust. its actually 40 trees per Ha, not acre. the video is about planting natives, but they surmise the only way to make that economic is to plant exotics as the majority canopy cover tree. I have heard of farmers doing similar things with poplar poles on farmland(presumably at a higher stocking rate).
Pasture quality is down the toilet. We have spent millions researching this already. "The research project at Tikitere produced an amazing amount of data. The overall finding would have to be that the combination of trees and pasture on the same land unit was not good for wood quality, pasture production or animal performance."
Another question, if timber products get more precious as the carbon costs inherent in steel and cement impact construction, then maybe there'll be some 'permanent pine' that gets swapped to rotational forestry (if that is permitted down the track). If it isn't permitted I still wouldn't be surprised if a line of trees on the boundary line somehow 'disappear' to the mill eventually.
As for limiting total plantings... well that will just make the limited pool of carbon credits even more valuable. If govt wants to keep carbon costs down, then the best way to do this is with an abundance of credits steadily entering circulation. I'm holding my own credits, as the longterm indications are that carbon prices will keep pushing skywards.
Nearly 50,000 ha done on farm - and this number is growing fast - shall we stop farmers as well? - remove sequestration from HWEN? From what I see thats the latest complaint from the farming machine that it maybe removed - what do you want?
There is over 1,000,000 ha of farmland that needs to be in some form of tree cover - nearly all permanent either exotic or native - this has been scientifically proven for many decades. When I show famers in other areas the photos of landscapes in the East Coast/Whanganui after storms they are amazed and cant understand why it isn't planted in trees - I always offer to set up a meeting with the farmers involved for them to inform them but no takers yet.
The latest report from Wairoa Gisborne Councils after the storms this year is a Monty Python classic - farms destroyed AGAIN, massive sediment loss AGAIN and the reports trying to work out how we get it back to what it was like before the storms - nothing to see here!!
The market will get them in the end ie go broke, along with Insurance companies not prepared to insure them and then Banks under ESG and other rules removing finance from them. Of course it will be someone else's fault.
Forestry has nothing to do with rural decline - just look at areas with no forestry and its even worse - Taihape, Mangaweka - I worked there in the early 80s and its a very sad place now.
By the way Fonterra is now on the board of the New Zealand Forest Owners Association and its not because they are interested in Christmas trees!!!
Yeah, another factor that will kill rural life is the increasing cost of transport fuels. Those weekly trips to town for supplies, the daily school bus runs, they will all push rural life into an increasingly expensive lifestyle choice. The same applies to coastal bach owners where those miles that were formerly taken for granted start to make a frivolous trip to the beach home increasingly costly. There's going to be a need to centralise as much of the population as we can to minimise the energy cost of maintaining our lives. Yeah, we still need farmers, but we don't need farmers to be 100km or more from the nearest town. THose places should always have remained in bush or forest cover.
From 1 Jan 2023 you don't have to pay them back if lost but you have to reestablish the forest within 4 years and get no more credits until the carbon stock reaches the level it was at the point of loss.
If you don't replant you have to pay them all back. If you don't the penalties are 300% penalty plus the credits.
There's no free lunch and strict conditions and serious penalties for non compliance.
We used to take pride in feeding the world.
Now we are following foreign orders to reduce the number of deplorable "useless eaters" by starving the world.
This is another giant scam.
We have been here before:
http://www.worldofinclusion.com/res/qca/Lest_We_Forget.pdf
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_unworthy_of_life
We want to feed the rich only - the poor cant pay enough.
If your land is washed away you cant do anything.
A huge amount of hill country farming is capital gain only - we have a housing ponzi scheme and a rural ponzi scheme in this country.
The fact is a huge portion of farms make no true profit - its a lifetstyle at best. Thats not me- thats top bankers, accountants, farm advisors and farmers themselves who tell me and its no ones fault its just the market.
Last time I looked there was no shortage of food in the supermarket here or any of our main markets - just more choice and competition every year.
"just the market" - it is not the market though is it? It is an ideologically based government mandate for trees to change the climate back to the Little Ice Age. It is never going to move the dial nor convince China to stop building coal power stations. It nobbles productive land uses with eye watering land prices and debt levels. "the poor can't pay enough" as they have to pay for artificial market derived debt servicing. Defending carbon bludging is like defending Muldoon's SMP's.
we fed Britain lamb , beef and butter. Anything that wasn't a sheep of cow was a pest . Took us 50 years to catch onto venison as a exportable product.
There are a lot of possible products that can grow in forests . Truffles for e.g.
here's another
https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/countrylife/audio/2018859024/…
Was there limits on deforestation - I.e. like the 10’s of thousands of hectares during early 2000’s that went into dairy… no!
if one takes the benefits of an open economy you must deal with the rules of the game.
other sectors and (taxpayers in general) already subsidise agriculture - if you don’t like the rules, get into politics and change it for all; I for one never mandated NZ into any climate protocol/agreement
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