Industry

Fruit and VegFed - Ken Robertson
Genesis Energy - Chris White
Meridian Energy - Nigel Broomhall
AgriLINK New Zealand - Andrew Barber
Waste Solutions Ltd - Jürgen Thiele
Wrightson Limited - Jeff McDougall

NZ Fruitgrowers and NZ Vegetable and Potato Growers Federations - Ken Robertson, Executive Officer

Fruit Growing

The significant uses of energy in the fruit industry occur in the post-harvest stages of fruit growing; i.e. in the packhouses and coolstores and in transportation and shipping.

The use of energy on the orchard is limited to frost protection activities, irrigation, ground maintenance and tree replacement and is thus a very much smaller use than at any of the post harvest stages.

Energy use and the proposed carbon emission charge is not a significant issue for the NZ Fruitgrowers' members.

Vegetable Growing

Outdoor production

More than 50,000 hectares of vegetable production is intensively cultivated and irrigated in New Zealand. These two activities are large users of energy, mainly diesel but also electricity and the costs have a direct impact on growers' costs of production.

Other indirect energy inputs such as fertiliser and agrichemicals have energy embodied in them and will attract a carbon tax via their manufacturing, transport and packaging.

There are also post harvest energy costs in packhouses, transportation and shipping, which in a completely deregulated vegetable market, are costs also borne by growers.

Protected cropping (greenhouse production)

It is estimated that there is approximately 200 - 250 ha of greenhouses in production in New Zealand producing vegetables and using between 2.2 and 2.8 PJ of energy.

Total energy use (from the participants in a recent SFF/Industry funded energy census) was 1.7 PJ from a total area of 150 ha, of which 124 ha were heated.

The average North Island operation will pay an annual carbon tax of almost $17,000 (6,885 m2 of greenhouse) and the average South Island operation $20,000 (for 4,585 m2 of greenhouse).

Vegetable R&D

In the outdoor sector one SFF/Industry funded project has been undertaken on "Tractor Efficiency". There have been other projects on "Irrigation Efficiency" but they have been more to do with application rather than energy efficiency.

There are several energy related greenhouse vegetable/flower research projects, i.e.:

SFF/Vegfed/NFGA/EGO - Greenhouse Census: Energy Use and Carbon Dioxide Emissions. Completed April 2004.
SFF/Vegfed/Natural Gas Corp./Solid Energy - Improving Energy Efficiency in Greenhouse Vegetable Production. Commenced April 2004, completes June 2006.
EECA/Climate Change Office/Vegfed - Greenhouse Sector Energy Benchmark Survey and Audits. To be commenced late September 2004.
SFF/Industry (CRL Energy and other stakeholders) - Participation in Year Two (2004/05) of the project "Educating Business Energy Consumers in Climate Change"; i.e. involvement in the development and dissemination of the information kit. One target sector is 'Protected Crops'.
Vegfed/Massey - "Energy Saving Potential for NZ Greenhouse Industry". This is a postgraduate student project, which has recently commenced.
CCO's Projects Mechanism - one or two of the very large growers are looking at wood waste as an alternative to natural gas for firing their boilers.

Carbon Emission Charge

The proposed carbon emission charge will have a direct and severe impact on vegetable growers' operating costs; e.g. for some in the tens of thousands of dollars for on-farm diesel and greenhouse heating.

The carbon tax will not change grower behaviour or the use of energy because the fuel is needed for optimum production. What will change growers' behaviour and therefore their use of energy will be soundly based energy efficiency measures that actually produce results and savings in commercial vegetable production without impacting on yields. Yields cannot be reduced because of the very small margins in the vegetable industry.

Genesis Energy - Chris White

Meridian Energy - Nigel Broomhall

AgriLINK New Zealand Energy Projects - Andrew Barber

Dairy Energy Analysis

Andrew Barber was closely involved with Colin Wells in the National Dairy Energy Use Study. Wells, C.W., 2001. Total Energy Indicators of Agricultural Sustainability: Dairy Farming Case Study. Following Colin's death Andrew worked with Don Bagnall (MAF Policy) to disseminate the report's findings.

Key Findings:

Total energy input to the 'national average' dairy farm is 18,000 MJ/ha. 15% of these energy inputs are from renewable sources. NZ's overall energy ration (OER) is lower than any reported overseas - 0.59 compared to an estimated 2.8 in USA and a range of 0.67 to 2.4 in European countries.

It was anticipated that an annual energy tracking system could be established by converting the annual Farm Monitoring financial data into energy units. This has not occurred as there were obstacles that made converting the financial budgets into energy units inaccurate or impossible. For example fertiliser is recorded as an aggregated dollar figure rather than by type a quantity. Likewise fuel use is a single dollar figure that is generally not separated into diesel and petrol.

Outdoor Vegetable and Arable Industry

Seven Case Study Farms: Total Energy & Carbon Indicators for New Zealand Arable & Outdoor Vegetable Production (Barber, 2004).

Key Findings:

Irrigated arable operations averaged total energy input of 34,200 MJ/ha. 61% was direct energy. The same overall energy ratio (output: input) for wheat was 3.0. Onion production required 50,100 MJ/ha, 40% of which was diesel. The overall energy ratio was 2.1. Renewable energy was 29% of the total energy use in irrigated arable operations and between 1 and 3% for outdoor vegetables.

Total carbon dioxide emissions for arable operations averaged 1.6 t/ha, while onions average 3.5 t/ha.

American wheat production has lower energy input per hectare, but on a yield basis total energy use was lower in NZ with an overall energy ratio of 3.0 compared with 2.5 in America. American and NZ energy inputs are similar in potato production. The overall energy ratio was better in NZ at 2.7 compared to 2.2 in America.

Energy Optimisation Supporting the Zespri Customer Gateway Programme

This project is currently being conducted. Thirty orchards have been surveyed and the data is currently being analysed. A previous pilot survey showed total orchard energy use to be approximately 49,000 MJ/ha of which 27% was direct energy.

Direct Energy Use in Protected Cropping Operations

The single largest energy survey of protected cropping operations was conducted last year. This investigated direct energy inputs for heating. Average energy use in the North Island was 1,210 MJ/m2 and 1,830 MJ/m2 in the South Island. This report has been completed, but only partially released.

Individual Grower Energy Audits

AgriLINK NZ is conducting energy audits for individual outdoor vegetable growing operations as part of the TESCO's Natures Choice and EUROGAP accreditation process. These are essentially energy benchmarking exercises but they demonstrate a path of continual improvement for these operations.

ARGOS

This is a project comparing conventional, transitional and organic production systems in the kiwifruit and sheep and beef industries. Part of this project, which began this year, is to investigate total energy use. www.argos.org.nz