New Zealand pastoral farmers and the mitigation of greenhouse gases in the agricultural sector
Authors: Christopher Rosin; Mark Cooper; Angela MacKenzie; Tanja Maegli
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Executive summary
This report provides an initial assessment of the current state of awareness of and anticipated response to the proposed emissions trading scheme (ETS) and associated afforestation policies among pastoral farmers in New Zealand. The objective of the analysis was to develop a timely "state of the sector" report, relying on established contacts with farmers in the ARGOS project. The report analyses the response of 29 of these farmers as expressed during interviews which introduced them to the conditions of the ETS and estimated liability levels and costs. Due to this focus, the findings in the report provide insight to some of the attitudes and the general level of preparedness in regard to adaptation to climate change among pastoral farmers.
In order to provide a context within which to better interpret the farmers' response, the report includes a review of existing social research on participation in agri-environment schemes in Europe, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. This literature strongly asserts the challenge faced in the implementation of policy that does not conform to the productivist focus of farming in these regions. Thus, any representation of the ETS as a purely economic policy instrument would fail to account for the social and cultural context through which farmers interpret and engage with such policy.
The farmers' response to the ETS and associated policies can be summarised on the basis of the sets of scenarios presented during the interviews:
- agricultural component of the ETS:
- The farmers generally considered that the inclusion of the agriculture sector in the ETS was unfair, especially if other countries were not doing so.
- Many farmers believed that credits for land use and management practices should extend beyond afforestation to include, for example, soil carbon and sequestration in grasses.
- point-of-obligation:
- Farmers expressed a slight preference for an individual (farm-level) point-of-obligation. This was especially true among farmers who indicated the capacity to include trees in areas of their farms.
- Many farmers also expressed preference for processor-level point-of-obligation, emphasising the reduced transaction costs in such a situation.
- afforestation policies:
- Just over half (~ 60%) of the farmers interviewed demonstrated a willingness to plant trees on their farms.
- The forestry component of the ETS was the most commonly preferred policy for encouraging afforestation among sheep/beef farmers. This reflected their preference to maintain greater flexibility of land use and the desire to earn income off all of their land.
- The PFSI was the most commonly preferred policy among dairy farmers who sought to establish forested conservation (as opposed to production) areas on smaller patches of marginal land on their farms.
- Despite identifying capital substantial constraints, neither group of farmers expected to utilise the AGS except for isolated areas considered to be unproductive.
- price signals:
- For those farmers willing to consider afforestation as a strategic response within the ETS, higher carbon prices prompted larger areas of tree planting. This response reflected concerns over increasing liability costs.
- While most farmers were confident of their ability to adapt to the ETS given a 90% free allocation of credits, they doubted the continued viability of their farms if subject to full liability.
The most consistent feature of the interviews was the general lack of awareness and knowledge of both the relationship between agricultural greenhouse gas emissions and climate change and the nature and operation of the proposed ETS. As a result, a list of farmers' questions and concerns regarding the policy was compiled from the interviews and provided in Appendix 1. The uncertainty surrounding both the science and the policy of the ETS also contributes to the following concerns as identified by the research team:
- many farmers see little capacity to change because they are unwilling to critique current farming practice and its focus on productivism. This suggests that farmers may not be as highly adaptive as they are often characterized;
- without credible and consistent information on alternative management and land use strategies, farmers will rely on existing knowledge that may not be accurate or appropriate in the context of climate change;
- farmers have a hard time seeing the logic of the entire regulatory system, from Kyoto through ETS. This lack of legitimacy may make them less likely to engage the ETS/PFSI in an optimal, efficient or informed manner;
- farmers are currently uninformed about (and lack the means of negotiating) the ETS policy and policy proposals leaving them largely unprepared, unequipped and unresponsive to the need for adaptation at a rapid rate;
- farmers see themselves constrained by lack of options, especially given the current economic conditions of the meat and (to a lesser extent) dairy industries. The perceived need to exploit all farm land for productive purposes leaves little unproductive area that can be moved into forestry;
- farmers refer to currently existing uncertainty surrounding both climate change policy and science to justify both their opposition to such policy and their delay in developing strategic response;
- farmers require decision support tools that not only calculate liability and credits, but also inform and instruct them about underlying ecological and economic processes of greenhouse gas production and mitigation at the farm level;
- farmers view many elements of domestic climate change policy (e.g., exclusion of shelterbelts and differentiation between pre-1990 and post-1989 forests) as arbitrary and contradictory conditions imposed by international interests;
- farmers also perceive greenhouse gas regulation as the product of urban interests that rests on a failure to adequately distinguish between industrial and "natural" (agricultural) sources.
Contact for Enquiries
Sustainable Land Management and Climate Change
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Tel: 0800 CLIMATE (254 628)
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