29/07/2023
Are we the laughing stock of the world?
Trying to heavily tax our farming and food production industry, and allowing large petroleum based industries to off set 100% of their emissions without the need to make real change to their own emissions profile, at the expense of our productive food producing land in this country is ridiculous, where is the sense in that?
Climate change is real and you won’t find to many people disagreeing with that, and as a country we need to take action, but charging farmers is not the right action. People's insatiable demand for consumable products they do not need, and the desire to continue jet setting around the world is causing climate change. If we are going to implement a tax then this is the area we need to target.
The Paris Agreement signed by New Zealand and most of the world clearly states that measures to mitigate climate change should not impact on food production, so why are current policy makers continuing to seek a tax on our farmers?
The proposed tax is a world first , yes no other country in the world is doing it. The proposed tax is structured so the farms with the lowest impact on climate change will convert to forestry. The tax is pricing all animal methane emissions despite them not contributing to any additional warming, this is non sensical legislation and is targeting the wrong emitters with long-term devastating effects on our provincial areas and will not reduce overall emissions.
If we don't produce meat and milk, other countries will, and less efficiently, so what are we achieving here on a global scale — and it's only the global emissions that count in climate change.
I think having farmers work out their on-farm emission profile is all well and good, but all factors have to be taken into consideration, and accurately recognising total on farm sequestration is a good start.
Farmers don't receive any recognition of their properties ability to sequester carbon from native bush or shelter belts for example, if it sequesters carbon then count it. Many will say farmers should do their bit to reduce emissions. They are — they are growing trees, grass, retiring land and producing animal products like wool and pelts that are biodegradable products used to manufacture many alternative products to high emission producing and polluting plastic products and synthetic carpets.
In a recent industry survey on the Government’s proposed changes to the Emissions Trading Scheme The survey reinforced that the majority of farmers are concerned about the scale and pace of whole farms being sold into forestry as a result of the increasing carbon price – and the resulting effects on rural communities – while at the same time many farmers see the opportunity to grow income from carbon revenue from on-farm planting as part of diversifying their farm systems.
The majority agreed that fundamental changes to the ETS are needed. On the Government’s proposed options for changes to the permanent forest category, there was significant concern among farmers about the inclusion of exotics in this category. While farmers saw instances where exotics could be included, there wasn’t consensus on what these exemptions could be.
There was also strong support for recognition for on-farm sequestration and expanding the categories for recognition.
As a country it is time to stand in solidarity with our farmers, they produce the food we eat and they drive the economy, and if you want lower weekly food bills, taking our farmers wont help.
https://factum-agri.buzzsprout.com/956197/13282014-factum-agri-are-we-the-laughing-stock-of-the-world
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