Friday, March 29, 2024

Farmers react to government’s HWEN stance

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‘There is no balancing of the ledger’.
Masterton farmer and BLNZ councillor Paul Crick has grave misgivings about the government’s HWEN stance, but he believes the door has been left open to ‘getting the right outcome’.
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By Richard Rennie and Annette Scott

Masterton farmer and Beef + Lamb NZ councillor Paul Crick says there’s a fundamental unfairness in the government’s interpretation of He Waka Eke Noa, one that conflicts with its own policy goals.

“Reading the ‘Fit for a Better World’ policy document, in Damien O’Connor’s foreword he writes how its aim is to build a more productive, sustainable and inclusive food and fibre sector. That appears a lot throughout the document, ensuring a better future for farmers and growers. How then do we throw that lens over what we heard on HWEN this week?”

Crick said there is a fundamental unfairness in the removal of the ability to sequester methane against farm vegetation, and in ignoring the 1.4 million hectares of woody vegetation already growing on NZ drystock farms that could be applied.

“It seems they are saying on one hand we will take it, and on the other we will take it as well. There is no balancing of the ledger there.” 

He urged farmers to take an interest in the HWEN consultation process and submit on it using the resources available.

“We need to bang that drum and bang it loudly.”

He said climate change policy is already creating perverse incentives with unintended consequences, but he remains an optimist by nature.

“Listening to the PM, she seems to have a sense that sheep and beef farmers are outliers in this. I interpret that as the door being open. She seems invested in this process, and she is for all intents and purposes trying to get the right outcome.”

Nick France with his daughters Violet, 10, and Blaise, 14, and Harley Davies. France and Davies co-chair a very successful catchment group in the Ashburton foothills.

Ashburton foothills sheep and beef farmers Harley Davies and Nick France said they are bemused as to why the government is “picking on” them when sheep and beef farmers alone are not the problem.

The pair co-chair a catchment group taking in 18 farmers who have collaborated and are successfully enhancing a catchment that they said has always been outstanding in its historic stewardship with many planting projects, acknowledgement of significant biodiversity and creation of QEII covenanted areas. 

The HWEN regulations will divide and disperse these critical small rural communities and their wealth of knowledge, they said.

“It’s like they [the government] have an ideology they are trying to fit to the rest of the world, it’s just a joke that someone in an office in Wellington thinks we are going to drop 20% in eight years,” France said.

“I would really love a scientist to come up and do a proper assessment of our farm’s tens of thousands of trees in shelterbelts and plantings on our place in every paddock – none of which mean anything because they are not eligible for sequestration.”

France farms sheep and beef, including a Hereford stud, on 950ha of rolling hill country.

“We have planted wetlands, it’s all biodiversity, we have regenerated plantings, we have harvested and split up flaxes, it’s sustainably grown, it’s all native, including a hillside of native matagouri that we have saved and manage.

“It’s been five years of work, four guys, spraying twice a year. 

“We are doing stuff but nothing counts,” said France.

“We are world leading now, we are the most carbon-efficient producing country in the world of high-end protein, so why reduce production for someone else in the world to pick up?  

“We need the scientific factual proof and some viable tools to help mitigate our greenhouse gases, not just all this hearsay.” 

Davies, who runs a sheep, beef and deer operation on 1190ha nearby, echoed France’s concerns.

“There’s a lot of farmers doing a lot of good stuff on their properties, but it’s not recognised.

“The biggest thing I can see is this is more politically driven than scientifically driven and until they measure our trees and measure all the sequestration we have got, to me it’s unsubstantiated and very clearly politically driven.

“We need even debate and the science from both sides.

“The other saddest thing to me is we need the future generations but for young sheep and beef farmers coming in the only option is to plant pine trees, that’s the reality, this is the future.

“There is no good in blaming one sector against another. The only way we can move forward is to all stick together on this, it’s a situation of united we stand divided we fall,” Davies said.  

All the regulations on farms, from environmental to animal welfare to greenhouse gas, are going to have significant ongoing effects on food production and food security that globally will force consumers to look elsewhere to countries with little to no regulations, the farmers said.

“We want to celebrate success but instead government throws a heap of bureaucracy at it in every way it can and rather than sustainable production being our key focus we are farming to conform to compliance.” 

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