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Farmers from across the Kaipara District gathered in Ruawai last month to protest a range of changes the Government is looking to implement that could affect their livelihoods.
This year, the Government has announced a Zero Carbon Bill to respond to climate change, new standards on freshwater management and its intention to bring agriculture into the emissions trading scheme.
There were close to 200 farmers at the protest and 40 tractors lined up in a paddock.
Maungaturoto farmer and rural commentator Grant McCallum says the protest was a response to a lack of communication from the Government with the rural community over the large-scale changes, particularly the changes to freshwater management.
“The freshwater document is over 100 pages and we were expected to absorb it in a few days. The government announced it on a Thursday and consultation meetings started on the Monday,” he says.
Meanwhile, the Zero Carbon Bill has set a target to reduce emissions of biogenic methane, including methane produced by farm animals, to between 24 to 47 per cent below 2017 levels by 2050. There is an interim target of 10 per cent below 2017 levels by 2030.
“Having a blanket target like that without a solution provides no hope. It’s deflating because we are set up to fail.”
Grant says the expectation is that farmers will have to reduce the number of animals on their farms to reduce emissions, but if New Zealand produces less meat, then farmers elsewhere in the world, who produce higher emissions, will fill the void in the market.
“The general feeling is that farmers are being blamed for New Zealand’s problems, but we are positively contributing to the economy,” he says.
He says research into reducing methane emissions from animal belching is funded by beef and lamb levies, but if the Government makes farming unprofitable with its changes, there won’t be money to invest in research.
Northland MP Matt King, who attended the protest, says putting a burden on farmers at the same time as incentivising forestry is changing the social landscape.
“Government incentives to plant trees are making it more financially viable to convert good farm land into forestry. This will devastate rural communities as farm jobs go and people move away,” he says.
Otamatea HarbourCare secretary and Otamatea ward councillor Mark Vincent says a mindset change in the rural community is needed.
“At the high level, nobody argues against the need to protect the environment, but regulatory changes need the buy-in of farmers,” he says.
“There isn’t a farmer who doesn’t want to leave his farm in a better state than before he got to it. They may feel that draining a wetland to make room for more production is improving it, but the bigger picture might be that farming it less intensively is better for the land.”
