Entire communities built around agriculture and livestock are dissolving as forest march into pastoral farming regions. Kate Acland sounds a warning that too much is being lost

The recent insights from Kate Acland, chairperson of Beef+Lamb and a farmer herself, into the Orme & Associates report on land use change highlight the urgency of the issue New Zealand is facing with farmland increasingly being converted into forestry for carbon credits. This shift, as she emphasises, is not merely a statistic but a real and accelerating trend impacting rural communities, food production, and New Zealand’s agricultural legacy.

Acland makes it clear that Beef+Lamb commissioned the report to provide real-time data to counter the significant lag in the government’s own figures on forestry conversion. “We think there's about a two to three year lag between farm sales being finalised and trees being planted,” she explains, illustrating that official data cannot keep up with the rapid transition of farmland into forestry. This delay, she argues, blinds policymakers to the speed at which pastoral land, especially productive sheep and beef farms, is being lost.

Between 2017 and mid-2024, 261,000 hectares of sheep and beef land were sold and converted to forestry, involving entire farms, not merely marginal corners where trees might be sensibly planted as part of a balanced farm model. Acland points out that much of this converted land is class six, or hill country, “but it’s good, productive breeding country,” she says. The result is a direct impact on livestock numbers, rural jobs, and ultimately the economic backbone of farming communities.

The roots of this trend as we know lie in New Zealand’s Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), which incentivises large-scale forestry through carbon credits. Acland underscores that this is not about specific organisations, but rather policies that drive their decisions. The ETS’s settings encourage both local and overseas investors to acquire farmland for carbon-only forestry, which requires minimal human involvement and virtually no contribution to local communities or export revenue. Unlike production forestry, which generates some employment around harvesting activities, carbon-only forestry offers no such benefit. “For every 1,000 hectares, farming creates 7.4 jobs, versus 5.1 for production forestry,” she explains. “But when you go to carbon-only farming, you’re looking at 0.6 jobs per 1,000 hectares,” and these few jobs are often not local, being tied to forestry operations remote from the rural communities losing this all important productive country.

Acland’s observations draw a stark picture of the ripple effect carbon forestry has on communities. “You just have to go to parts of the North Island to see the impact,” she notes, mentioning school closures, loss of local services, and dwindling populations. Rural New Zealand, she says, is experiencing devastating shifts. Entire communities built around agriculture and livestock are dissolving as children leave schools and families move away. Farming contributes not only to rural economies but also to social cohesion—a vital link being eroded by rapid land-use change.

As for food prices, Acland sees a clear upward trend due to the shrinking sheep and beef sector. “We need really profitable processing companies and a really profitable sector, and that requires the industry to be of a certain size,” she explains. Without that critical mass, processing costs rise, product availability dwindles, and prices increase for consumers. Acland alludes to plant closures like the one in Timaru as signals that this is not just theoretical; real consequences are manifesting in communities today.

Carbon farming, as Acland points out, contributes nothing to New Zealand’s export earnings or domestic production. “Carbon farming is purely about ETS credits, so it adds absolutely nothing to our country,” she argues. The only revenue it generates is from ETS credits purchased by other industries aiming to offset their emissions. In essence, carbon farming allows these businesses to bypass genuine efforts to reduce emissions, pushing the environmental burden onto New Zealand’s rural communities. Acland notes that while exotic trees like pines have a role within mixed farming, whole-farm conversions for carbon credits alone don’t benefit New Zealand in any tangible way.

When questioned about the long-term implications for export revenue, Acland explains that without exports, there are no jobs. The farming sector’s economic contributions are grounded in farming the land, not in passive land ownership for carbon credits. Acland is particularly concerned about the impact on New Zealand’s renowned farming landscapes, its biodiversity, and even tourism. Converting productive farmland to forests risks turning these iconic landscapes into monoculture zones, devoid of the rich, pastoral character that has long been a feature of the countryside.

Interestingly, Beef+Lamb is not against forestry. In fact, many farmers, including Acland herself, see the value of integrating trees within farms as a part of achieving climate goals. “On our own farm, we've actually got 10% of the farm in forestry,” she says, emphasising that Beef+Lamb supports forestry as a diversification strategy that complements livestock farming. However, current policy settings that incentivise wholesale conversion are, in her view, far too permissive. The National Party’s pre-election manifesto suggested restrictions on whole-farm conversions, a measure Acland supports to protect productive land classes while still allowing farmers to plant less productive corners of their farms.

Acland acknowledges that the ETS has created an artificial market, distorting the natural land-use dynamics traditionally driven by market returns. Unlike the Canterbury dairy conversions, which were propelled by profitable opportunities, the current shift towards carbon forestry is not grounded in market demand for forestry products or local needs. Instead, it’s driven by policies favouring short-term gains that neglect the longer-term impacts on rural communities, agricultural resilience, and food security.

The consequences of unfettered carbon farming reach beyond New Zealand’s shores, as a reduction in sheep and beef farming weakens the nation’s export base and global agricultural identity. With 261,733 hectares already gone to carbon farming, the scale of this transformation is staggering, and the pace appears only to be accelerating. If policy makers really care about farming and value our red meat sector like they say they do, where are the policies that support this narrative?

Acland’s view encapsulates a widely held frustration in New Zealand’s farming community. That policymakers can speak about the importance of agriculture while allowing farmland to vanish into forests at record rates strikes many as contradictory. The statistics—7,004 hectares in 2017 escalating to nearly 64,000 hectares annually by 2022—tell a story of a country at risk of losing its agricultural heritage. The time to address this is now. The breaks need to come on and they need to come on now, we need a widespread call for policies that support a future where agriculture and forestry coexist, enhancing New Zealand’s economic resilience rather than undermining it.

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Angus Kebbell is the Producer at Tailwind Media. You can contact him here.