By Rob Reynish*
If we need less pastoral livestock farming to meet our climate commitments, how will that work for our economy?
As the Climate Change Commission has suggested, one land use change could be into horticulture.
But the actual transitions will probably need more than landowners shifting on a sense of "doing the right thing". Governments tackle this by changing the incentives, imposing costs for activities they don't want to encourage.
But this is almost always a process that is unlikely to generate much more than a backlash. Unenthusiastic landowners subject to forced cost impositions are hardly likely to drive any innovations.
Livestock farming is a business, part of a large sector involved in generating significant income from exports that will be very hard to replace. Incentivised forestry that produces nothing but tax credits will always seem like a dead end to the sector.
Livestock farming makes use of land in a way that can generate more income than costs. The country benefits. But deciding what is the best, most profitable use of land will always grab the commercial attention of landowners.
And it isn't just because sheep farming is in a rut at present. Beef and intensive dairy farming are high-cost operations. And while they may be profitable at present, there will always be tension when other land uses can generate better returns.
An important transition is already underway in Canterbury, naturally, because it generates better commercial returns. It is out of sheep, beef and dairy, and not into pine forest. Horticulture is even replacing dairy as the numbers stack up for those enhanced commercial returns. But for the trend to extend to become significant, substantial investment will be required for local processing.
The transition required is large. Livestock farming produces the products that make up 50% of our merchandise trade exports. Horticulture makes up just 10%, forestry 7%.
Not all land is suitable for horticulture. But much of the Canterbury Plains are. As are other sizeable pockets of land previously used for livestock grazing.
When horticulture options are more profitable than livestock options, the transition can happen with private equity and funding, not needing taxpayer subsidies. And it could be relatively fast. The downstream processing will attract major international investors with expertise and the funding. New local alternatives will generate wealth for those taking the risks. There will be failures too, but they will be tolerated if the profit promise from horticulture is proven.
And it is not as though there aren't vast international markets. It is only that we haven't got our share yet.
Our sustainable advantage is the combination of climate, soils, and a reliable water supply. There are many other places in the world that have similar advantages, but face more immediate threats from climate and water access. New Zealand must use this to achieve more recognition on the global stage. The key is to choose horticultural options that maximise those advantages for us.
In a climate-challenged world, safe and reliable food production will always be a premium economic position. Horticulture can assist in the way we transition from the much maligned emissions-affecting livestock model.
*Rob Reynish is an agribusiness consultant specialising in land use issues, a business development manager at Lincoln University, and maintains the livestock data at interest.co.nz.
15 Comments
I know it's hard but try getting your facts straight.
It's not 'believe', it's physics. Put more energy in, get more wind and rain out. Sailors and insurers of same, are well aware of the escalation.
No, the solar panels and windmills are an attempt to address inevitable resource depletion - something you obviously need to spin about.
No, solar and wind won't maintain BAU, but then, nothing will; modernity was temporary.
Horticulture might mitigate and certainly addresses a fossil-depleted future.
It's not 'believe', it's physics. Put more energy in, get more wind and rain out.
Don't be so despondent. A complex system like the Earth has multiple ways to maintain homeostasis and energy balance and doesn't operate in the Newtonian, mechanistic style you stated. That's true physics. I always think of the climate scientist Professor Guy McPherson who was so caught up in his evidence based theory of abrupt catastrophic climate change caused by massive arctic circle methane release that he quit his job and literally moved his family out of civilisation a decade ago. He set up a self-sustainable bolt hole from which to watch the downfall of all human life as we know it. And he's still waiting.
So you accept anthropogenic warming but don't understand the results. Earth is a ball of physics, chemistry and biology its not bothered by our rush to burn hydrocarbon. We already have enough green house gases in the atmosphere to mess with current climate and weather patterns. Our inability as a species to come to a consensus does not bode well.
No one understands the "results". As the IPCC put it - The climate system is a coupled non-linear chaotic system, and therefore the long-term prediction of future climate states is not possible.
Or Freeman Dyson "I have studied the climate models and I know what they can do. The models solve the equations of fluid dynamics, and they do a very good job of describing the fluid motions of the atmosphere and the oceans. They do a very poor job of describing the clouds, the dust, the chemistry, and the biology of fields and farms and forests," writes Dyson.
"I'm not saying the warming doesn't cause problems, obviously it does," he told students two years ago. "Obviously we should be trying to understand it. I'm saying that the problems are being grossly exaggerated. They take away money and attention from other problems that are much more urgent and important. Poverty, infectious diseases, public education, and public health. Not to mention the preservation of living creatures on land and in the oceans."
https://www.theregister.com/2007/08/14/freeman_dyson_climate_heresies/
Horticulture the new goldmine...
Ever had skin in the game of growing fruit?
In my opinion it is the highest risk land use activity of all farming activities.
5 minutes of hail at the wrong time of year - say goodbye to your revenue for 12 months. Verify that by talking to orchardists who suffered total crop loss in the disastrous March 1994 storm that destroyed about half the planted area in Hawkes Bay. Or talk with the Cain brothers (or their investors) about how many successful harvests they achieved from their Applefields venture in Canterbury. Talk to Paul Painter, or John Bostock about how great horticulture has been over the last couple of years.
It's easy to say that there's a big global market out there. But I think you will find that it is already pretty well supplied. Storage technologies now allow 12+ month storage of some fruits. There is yet to be a long duration storage technology developed for stone fruit, so forget about surface shipped NZ peaches, apricots, nectarines, cherries or plums appearing on northern hemisphere supermarket shelves. Air freight, yes but expensive and needs direct to market shelf arrangements.
Horticulture is a 1 opportunity per 12 month cycle to generate income. It is not for the faint hearted. But maybe if a single desk export structure was re-established, (like ZESPRI) then there might be a chance it could grow. But without such a structure, I see little potential for substantial growth in production.
Plus China has been supplying small farmers in both the African and American continents with advanced agricultural machinery and other advanced farming technology for a small fraction of the price that John Deere and others sell it for. These small scale sometimes barely subsistence farmers have never had access to this kind of farm productivity enhancing methodologies before. New Zealand better take a close look at its niche dairy/ag/hort export strategy. Global competition in this space from brand new suppliers over the next few years is going to be ferocious.
This sounds more like a lack of diversification / risk management issue.
Why go all in on one product like apples if you can grow different crops and hedge your bets?
Sure, there's some efficiencies in focussing on one thing only but ultimately that's a risk premium to pay.
Economies of scale is a factor. Tractor, mower, sprayer are high capital items, as is the land itself
Variety and species mix are forms of diversification.
Another aspect is that you can't readily step into and out of fruit crops - trees have a long lead time to production. Unlike vegetable or arable crops
Beef farming is not a high cost method of farming. My Reynish puts it in the same sentence as intensive dairy farming. That is nonsensical.
Not only is the land a lot cheaper. The infrastructure required is negligable compared to dairy. Or for that matter cropping or horticulture.
It is a relatively stable and easy way to generate income. It is easy on our soils, and it is easy on the fossil fuel inputs in comparison to the very mechanised cropping industry.
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