Beef + Lamb New Zealand (B+LNZ) welcomes the announcement of measures to address the amount of productive sheep and beef farmland being lost to carbon farming.
The Government has announced rules to limit whole-farm to forestry conversions entering the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS).
The measures are consistent with those in the National Party’s pre-election manifesto, which B+LNZ had previously said was a sensible platform to work from.
B+LNZ Chair Kate Acland said B+LNZ is delighted to finally see concrete action to address this issue, which is something B+LNZ has been calling for.
“We’ve consistently been asking for action, alongside concerned farming groups, since 2019. The regular independent research B+LNZ has commissioned on the amount of whole-farm sales has led the conversation, making the scale of the problem all too clear.
“We’ve lost so much productive land to carbon farming – more than 260,000 hectares between 2017 and 30 June 2024 – and that means stock number losses and ultimately negative impacts on rural communities and New Zealand’s export earnings.
“We estimate for every 100,000 hectares planted close to one million stock units are lost. That means over 2.5 million stock units so far – despite the Paris Agreement explicitly seeking to avoid impacts on food production.
“This significant increase in land-use change has been driven by both the carbon price and a lack of limits on offsetting of fossil fuel emissions. Together, this has significantly inflated the price carbon farming interests are able to pay for farmland.
“We applaud the Government for taking action – this is the first time we’ve seen concrete steps being taken to halt this concerning land-use change trend.
“While we believe the changes should slow whole-farm sales for conversion to trees, we’ll continue to monitor the situation.”
The changes include a moratorium on exotic forestry registrations for Land Use Classifications (LUC) 1-5 and an annual cap of 15,000 hectares for exotic forestry conversions on LUC 6 farmland.
“The limits around LUC 6 are very important as this represents the highest proportion of land sold for conversion and is the main class of land used by sheep and beef farmers,” Acland notes.
She says B+LNZ also supports the flexibility within the new rules for farmers to enter up to 25 percent of their farm into the ETS regardless of land-class.
“We support the integration of trees within farms, targeting mosaic landscapes and with farmers able to convert and enter a proportion of their farm into the ETS where it makes sense to do so, regardless of land class. But the wholesale conversion of whole farms driven by ETS settings has gone too far.”
ENDS
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