Keith Woodford

This is a further article in a series I have been writing exploring the issues of carbon farming. The issues are important because we are on the cusp of massive land-use changes. These are driven by the current economics of carbon farming now being far superior to sheep and beef farming on most classes of land.

The concept of ‘carbon farming’ has been around for a long time. I recall carbon farming discussions with my colleagues at University of Queensland back in the early 1990s, but the industry has taken a long time to finally arrive. Well, it is now here. And it has the potential to overwhelm not only the sheep and beef industries, but also have big impacts on the timber industry.

My previous article on carbon farming focused on the North Island hard hill country. If financial returns are to be the key driver of land-use, and based on a carbon price of $48 per tonne, then the numbers suggest that carbon farming on that class of country is a winner.

In recent months, I have been analysing New Zealand sheep and beef farming to try and understand the changing scene. Here, I shift the focus to carbon farming on the North Island hard hill country, where sheep and beef currently predominate.

In this article I am not looking at lumber because much of the hard hill country has lumber problems arising from logging costs and associated infrastructure. Rather, I am focusing on permanent pine forests and asking whether the economics now stack up.

In recent months, I have been analysing New Zealand sheep and beef farming to try and understand the…