Red Meat Farmers Welcome Labour's Emissions Pricing Pledge
Red meat farmers are welcoming Labour’s plan to review the Emissions Trading Scheme and not to campaign on pricing agricultural emissions.
Former Meat and Wool NZ director Tom Mandeno, who has served in several high profile leadership roles in the primary sector over many years, runs a 670 hectare sheep and beef property, near Port Waikato, on the west coast of the North Island. He says it would be very hard to find an extra $200,000 in his farming operation to pay such a bill.
To that end, Mandeno has put forward a remit to the Beef + Lamb NZ (B+LNZ) annual meeting being held on March 24. The remit calls for B+LNZ to support the inclusion of established trees as vegetation sequestration offsets, to be included in the greenhouse gas emissions calculation required for farm environment plans.
"If a pine tree can sequester carbon, surely a poplar or oak tree or a native tree - such as kauri and rimu and other native trees that people have fenced off on their farms - should also be included," he told Rural News.
"These trees are sequestering carbon and the farmers are not getting any credit, which I think is unfair."
Mandeno says when he became aware of the GHG emissions issue and how it might impact on his farm he sought the professional help of B+LNZ's Hamilton-based extension manager, Maria Shanks. She looked over his property, did the calculations, and found that the farm was emitting 2,497 tonnes of carbon.
However, what staggered Mandeno the most was that despite all the native trees and other plantings - such as poplar poles and willows - on his farm, he is only entitled to a credit of just 17 tonnes.
"On that basis we face a potential bill of $200k for carbon," he says.
Mandeno says this figure is based on the cost of carbon being set at the rate of $100 per tonne.
He says it is presently valued at $85 a tonne, but he expects this to rise in the coming years. He realises that initially the cost of carbon will be discounted but says this won't last forever and, from a budgeting point of view, the $100 tonne figure is realistic.
"That being the case, a lot of farmers will face very challenging times trying to meet that cost. I don't know how we are going to be able to pay for this," he says.
"It seems we are the only country in the world that is charging farmers emissions in this way."
