Editorial: Battle lines drawn
OPINION: Climate change is shaping up to be one of the major issues at next year's general election.
Farmer and former politician Sir Lockwood Smith is questioning the way that methane emissions from livestock are measured in NZ.
Smith, respected as an agricultural scientist, farmer and politician, says the present system of measuring methane emissions by way of an accounting target approach is wrong. He says no one questions the need for emissions to be reduced, but he says the present system will one day end in tears.
"What needs to happen is a complete change in strategy internationally for methane emissions from animals, with the focus being on the 'carbon efficiency' of the food that we produce," he told Rural News.
Smith says NZ has got to start lobbying the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to start looking at food production differently. He says shifting the focus to the carbon efficiency of food being produced and ensuring it's produced in the most carbon efficient way will benefit climate change. "Even if NZ alone decided to change the focus to carbon efficiency in food, this would make little difference. What NZ must do is get out there and influence global thinking on the subject and get buy-in from other countries," he says.
According to Smith, some of the solutions being proposed for reducing methane in our livestock - such as vaccines and boluses - are not as good as they sound. He points to the problem that worms in animals are developing resistance to drenches and believes the same could happen with things like vaccines.
He says NZ has ways of farming that are so much more efficient and notes that the big challenge in carbon efficiency is to make sure that more of what a ruminant animal consumes goes into production compared to the maintenance of the animals' body.
"That's what delivers efficiency," he says.
One way of improving carbon efficiency on NZ farms says Smith is to slaughter beef animals much sooner than we do. He says now too many 'old' animals are being slaughtered and keeping a cattle beast for three years is not workable if you want to increase carbon efficiency.
"Why not slaughter a beast at 18 months? That would make a huge improvement on carbon efficiency," he says.
State farmer Pāmu has appointed Roz Urbahn as its new chief corporate services officer.
The Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) has approved a rust fungus and a flower weevil to control Darwin’s barberry, a spiny invasive shrub.
Rural trader PGG Wrightson has lifted its earning guidance for the last financial year on the back of stronger-than-expected performances across several business units.
The creation of Europe's largest dairy co-operative should be complete by early 2026.
Federated Farmers is arguing for controversial environmentalist group Greenpeace to be stripped of its charitable status.
Twenty four young farmers from South Australia, Western Australia and Tasmania have returned from a recent study tour of Ireland with practical insights, fresh thinking and an expanded network of peers.
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