For farmers who need external incentives as emitters to make real change in their practices, there seem to be are none. I asked Madeline Hall, Senior Environment Policy Analyst at Beef+Lamb her thoughts on this critical area.
“The whole theory about this emissions trading scheme is that if you get a price to a certain point, that price is going to tip people over the edge because the price to buy an emissions offset is greater than the cost of actually changing behaviour. And as, as we can sometimes understand, theory to practice doesn't always work.”
Hall said, “Evidence has suggested worldwide that actually, price is not the thing that truly makes change happen. It's a whole other wider set of policies and frameworks that align together in coordination with an emissions price to really see emissions reductions happening on the ground and in ways that are actually supportive of achieving the multiple objectives that we have. Because I guess from my perspective, change doesn't necessarily have to be hard, right? If we make some choices about the way that we want to approach change, and the way that we can make it become an opportunity for how we want to be living our lives and living within our communities, that's fantastic but it means that we really have to make some serious choices now, and some really tough calls at times, so that we are operating in a way that can achieve our values and visions.”
Beef+Lamb's main concern is with the scale, pace and style of plantings that we're currently seeing happening right now on New Zealand farms. Beef+Lamb does not think that the majority of this planting is done in a way that supports the vision of a resilient sheep and beef farming landscape and thriving rural communities.
“We recognize that sheep and beef farmers have many choices on how best to optimize the use of their land resources, and especially in ways that help them meet their own personal goals as well as adapt to the impacts of climate change. At the end of the day, we truly believe that sheep and beef meat production is a profitable and sustainable land use across New Zealand's landscapes.
"And as part of that there are plenty of opportunities within existing sheep and beef operations for carbon forestry that can be well aligned with sustainable meat production. We, as a levy body organization are truly responsible for our levy payers, alongside the wider sheep meat and beef industry.”
“And this means that we want to focus on the sustainable profitability of our farmers, the vibrancy of their communities, and the critical mass within regions that's needed to support successful meat processing and exporting. So we're balancing a whole lot of considerations here, when we're putting forward our vision in the space. And we do respect landowners land use decision rights within the context of our current legal and regulatory frameworks, but right now we don't think that those settings are right because individuals including corporate individuals, are not necessarily being required to take full responsibility for managing the results of their actions, especially in the carbon forestry space.”
“We really think that as land stewards and as land owners and responsible members of the sheep and beef industry we want to make sure that we can manage the externalities of our given land use and land use choices, and that the kind of regulations that we want to be putting in place to manage those risks are commensurate with the burden that they will be placing on either a farmer or on the wider community. So if we as individuals or as our farmers are being asked to take responsibility, that also means the government needs to take responsibility which means that the government of the day must acknowledge and take responsibility for the policies and their impacts implemented under their leadership. We believe that right now, the current government of day is not doing that fully and that the policies that drive land use decisions should consider both the short and long term economic, social, cultural and environmental impacts for New Zealand supported by some really robust analysis. The ETS settings right now are kind of a free for all for emitters to completely offset their emissions without actually considering the consequences of that, for how New Zealand is going to be achieving its emissions reduction targets, nor for the consequences of our land use flexibility or our rural communities and their resilience. So we really encourage policy settings that can offer multiple benefits and achieve multiple outcomes, especially within a space that provides for thriving and resilient sectors, including sheep and beef.”
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Angus Kebbell is the Producer at Tailwind Media. You can contact him here.
18 Comments
Price doesn’t change actions? Yeah right. That’s the most basic human instinct and is counterintuitive.
Theres still less forest than we had 15 years ago plus the biggest beneficiary’s are land owners through land value and the ability to partake in the ETS if they wish and large numbers are. One beef and Lamb person told me the ETS is a very important cashflow issue now for many farmers ie they need the cash to prosper and many don’t want it changed.
There’s clearly land use controls coming but as Simon Uptons report shows we will need some more forest if we have any chance of meeting any targets. If we had started 30 years ago not so many but time is running out.
Trees are the least of hill countries problems. Profitability, succession because of that, labour supply - lack off as working age populations plummet in many rural regions, a rapidly ageing profile plus kids who don’t want to farm or want their capital share are the biggies. Until we front up to that the decline of the last 30 years will continue.
Go through Taihape, Mangaweka etc with no forests and it’s pretty grim. The demise of wool has caused more damage than anything and it’s chances are slim to zero for a comeback.
I think viewing the rise in land values as a positive for hill country sheep/beef farming as very short sighted. For long term sustainability in rural nz, the red meat sector needs to be profitable. This is the best use at present for our fertile hill country, and surely more critical to the world as a whole than theoretical carbon credits and timber. There will always be a place for timber, but carbon credits you could throw out the window at any stage.
The benefit in the rise of land values only helps the seller when they sell to forestry. Soon after this the benefit of this land sale is lost (and by soon I mean in less than one lifetime). There is no one way that forestry can support rural nz better than pastoral farming.
Why are they selling?
Lack of real profitability, no kids interested due to no money profits, other kids want their share, partners not prepared anymore to live remotely, ageing populations - the list goes on. Ask any rural social researcher and the stories are the same.
The decline has been ongoing for decades and is the same around the world. Europe retires nearly 300,000ha of farmland a year as ageing hits very hard and kids have choices.
Until you are really honest about things the ship will continue to sink trees or no trees.
Our hill country is only fertile because we pour fertiliser from the other side of the world on it - ask most farmers what happens if you stop any fertiliser applications.
Plenty of farmers are embracing change and finding themsleves very profitable again and good on them.
Wealthy buyers are not short of protein and that who we sell to. The problem is the by product (wool) is shot which means meat has to carry the whole can.
Its very admirable to want to feed all the world but the cold reality is we only need the high payers who can choose what they want.
Its the cost of producing the stuff less what you get paid that matters and for many it dosnt add up anymore and has been heading that way for a long time. Just read the B and L figures and if you add in proper drawings its a no return on capital business. Im not bagging farmers in fact we urgently need to get honest and find a real solution to improve profits or else its very grim for the bottom 50%.
Jack
I don't agree that we mainly sell to 'high payers'. Most of our products go to Asian countries as ingredients. Where our products go to the USA, such as beef, they end up in lower-priced products such as hamburgers. The big exceptions are kiwifruit and wine. Some lamb is also an elite product.
Ingredients and commodities are simply the natural order of things when you are a seasonal producer in a far-off part of the world. it is not easy to change the natural order of things.
KeithW
Jack when you refer to 'Europe retires nearly 300,000ha of farmland a year as ageing hits very hard and kids have choices.' are you saying people are just walking off their land and leaving it to rewild, or are govt paying for it. There's a difference between being paid for it to rewild, and just walking off it. The latter would provide no financial benefit to any of the generations involved in the land ownership.
I'm sure I put the link up a while ago from an EU report I'll have to refind it. It's simply no one wants to or is there to work the land. It's the higher altitude harder land going first but the ageing population is causing major change. The land is just being left to rewild.
All through Europe whole villages are being abandoned and the EU is desperately trying to get people back to no avail. Italy is closing down maternity hospitals as there are no babies being born in these regions and schools the same.
It's no one's fault just a simple demographic change. The same is happening all over the world to degrees. This is also happening here with working age populations expected to drop in many rural areas by up to 30% plus in the next 20 years and we wonder why we have a labour shortage. The population may not go down buts it's old people needing help and care. We ain't seen nothing yet.
Combined with that bright young people can get work all over the world that pays well with conditions not seen here. I have one of my kids and partner just moved to Europe to both work. 6 weeks paid leave, buffet breakfast and lunch provided each day 3 extra stat holidays, gym, squash courts, virtual golf, 36 hour week, get gifts from company every fortnight. Need I say more and as for the pay don't ask.
I was in Maui Hawaii pre covid same issue. Land abandoned to fallow and rewild as no one to work it. Only 10% of Hawaiis food is grown there now with rich volcanic soils and water. Welcome to the future.
Heres a couple of links -
https://joint-research-centre.ec.europa.eu/publications/agricultural-la…
https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/ATAG/2021/652241/IPOL_ATA…
In the period 2015-2030 about 11% (more than 20 million ha) of agricultural land in the EU are under high potential risk of abandonment due to factors, related to biophysical land suitability, farm structure and agricultural viability, population and regional specifics. The risk for around 800 thousand ha (0.4%), located in Southern and Eastern Romania, Southwestern France, Southern and central Spain, Portugal, Cyprus, Poland, Latvia and Estonia, is particularly severe. Economic factor and market instruments (including the EU Common Agricultural Policy) could largely mitigate those potential risks in a number, mostly Eastern countries and regions – Estonia, Latvia, Romania, Cyprus. The incremental abandonment within 2015-2030 is nevertheless projected to reach 4.2 million ha net (about 280 thousand ha per year on average) of agricultural land, bringing the total abandoned land to 5.6 million ha by 2030, the equivalent of 3% of total agricultural land.
It's not always about viability. Some kids just don't want to live and raise a family 1-2hrs from services, a choice of retailers and where boarding school may be the only option due to location. Much like the urban kids, their dream job is not always the dream job of their parents.
I agree with most of those issues for reasons people are selling out, and of course age is a major factor. But the whole timber ( not to mention carbon) thing is not an essential for life. There is, and probably always will be a place for wood products. But how many trees do we need!
It just seems to me that the trend for forestry will balance out in time, but maybe not until its gone too far. At which point we realise that we have given up food production (always in demand) in favour of trees. When this happens (maybe in 27-30 years time when they become harvestable?) we may find ourselves stuck with a valueless commodity? But thats ok, at least the forest owner has secured some carbon credits in the initial 15 years of the forest life.
The point I make is one day the tree gravy trains wheels will fall off. Our problem is being profitable without using trees in the short/mid term. Intended taxing of methane will make this very hard!
If it happens as you say jigboo, then if the land is good enough it will quite simply be turned back to pasture. At the moment many farms are a money go round. By the time you pay for Fert, weed control and all livestock input costs there is not much left.
In the mean time most will do what ever has the best financial result regardless of what others think.
You need to make profit whatever you do to survive and attract people.
Capital gain has driven a lot of farming for decades now, dairy aside and thats from farmers, bankers and accountants.
Carbon is saving a lot of farmers now including some who protest about it but quietly use it themselves - there's a word for that.
Timber has saved many farms as well.
Some trees are going in dumb places as well just as some farms are in dumb places.
They will all be found out in the end.
banging trees in the ground is our best option at the moment.I'm afraid it looks like Luxon will play lip service to action on fossil fuel use and methane, and hopefully labour has the fortitude to at least take the current proposals ( and hopefully more )to the vote. Its 50 /50 on the out come though. it needs to make a lot better job of expalaining the policies to those that are open to listening.
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