Editorial: New Treeland?
OPINION: Forestry is not all bad and planting pine trees on land that is prone to erosion or in soils which cannot support livestock farming makes sense.
If elected next term, Labour says it will require resource consent for any conversion of highly productive farmland into forestry.
Labour Party Forestry spokesperson Stuart Nash said food producing soil will take priority over planting trees to meet climate change challenges.
“Within the first six months of the next term of government, we will revise the National Environment Standards for Plantation Forestry to enable councils to once again determine what classes of land can be used for plantation and carbon forests.”
“Resource consent would be required for plantation or carbon forests on Land Use Capability Classes 1-5 – often known as elite soils – above a threshold of 50 hectares per farm to allow farmers flexibility in creating small plantations to support environmental goals,” said Nash.
Labour Party rural communities spokesperson Kieran McAnulty says 90% of forestry planting for ETS purpose happens on less productive soils in classes 6-8.
McAnulty says Labour wants to ensure all planting happens away from valuable soils in classes 1-5.
“Forestry is not bad: we need the right tree in the right place, but we also need the right mechanism to ensure this,” said McAnulty.
New Zealand has approximately 12.1 million hectares in farmland and 1.7m in forestry.
Labour says 22,000 hectares of farmland was converted to forestry in 2019, a figure conflicting with Beef + Lamb New Zealand, who claim about 70,000 hectares of productive sheep and beef land has been converted to forestry since 2019.
The climate of uncertainty and market fragmentation that currently characterises the global economy suggests that many of the European agricultural machinery manufacturers will be looking for new markets.
Dignitaries from all walks of life – the governor general, politicians past and present, Maoridom- including the Maori Queen, church leaders, the primary sector and family and friends packed Our Lady of Kapiti’s Catholic church in Paraparaumu on Thursday October 23 to pay tribute to former prime Minister, Jim Bolger who died last week.
Agriculture and Forestry Minister, Todd McClay is encouraging farmers, growers, and foresters not to take unnecessary risks, asking that they heed weather warnings today.
With nearly two million underutilised dairy calves born annually and the beef price outlook strong, New Zealand’s opportunity to build a scalable dairy-beef system is now.
Graduates of a newly-updated Agri-Women’s Development Trust (AWDT) course are taking more value than ever from the programme, with some even walking away calling themselves the “farm CFO”.
Meet the Need, a farmer-led charity, says food insecurity in New Zealand is dire, with one in four children now living in a household experiencing food insecurity, according to Ministry of Health data.