Angus Kebbell wraps up the year with two highlight interviews, exploring carbon sequestration again, and the emissions trading scheme

The end of the year is here, for many this is a time where you set your out of office and clock out to the beach for 2 or 3 weeks. For many farmers however this is a busy time of year trying to juggle family needs during the festive season as well as keeping the wheels turning on the farm. I want to personally thank New Zealand farmers for their continued efforts in keeping this country afloat.

This week I revisited two interviews from earlier in the year, I enjoy every interview that I do and these two were no exception. They focus on areas of policy in the farming sector that for me are right up there in terms of the challenges facing New Zealand farmers. Recognition of on-farm sequestration is one and the out-of-control ETS and specifically carbon forests in another. Dr Adam Forbes joined me to discuss sequestration earlier in the year and he spoke sense and talked to science.

I asked him how can we accurately count net emissions on farm if sequestration is not accurately measured? He said" "you would need to understand what's being sequestered on a farm to understand the net position. So I can't really suggest how else that could be done.” So essentially if we can't measure on farm sequestration, then essentially it is impossible to measure or have a net on farm emission value.”

“I think sequestration has to be an actual and transparent thing. We can't be falsifying any aspect of it, and we can't be leaving parts out of that equation either. I think that the best thing we can do is have a complete, accurate sort of accounting of sequestration. And if it means that there's sequestration happening on farms that farmers aren't currently being recognised for, that's obviously a problem right, because we're not going to have a complete picture of that cycle.”

So what is the view of a farmer on some of these issues, farmer Emma Crutchley from Central Otago also joined me.

She has been involved in setting up a large catchment project in the past three or four years and she told me “Over 90,000 plants have been planted and they're all tussocks and grasses, and of course their sequestration values are not included currently, but it does allow the catchment group to bring in some of the woody vegetation around the edges, and then you have got something that actually counts."

“And if that is not there and it doesn't count, then that catchment group actually can’t incentivise those plantings because me as a farmer is going to turn around and say, I don't want to spend money on it, sorry, because I need to plant my pine trees in a big massive square so it can be viable for what I'm trying to do as a farmer. The biggest incentive we have is the fact that carbon farming is worth $86 a ton at the moment, and that completely blows out of water sheep and beef farming, right? So at least if you can start looking at these nature based solutions that fit within HWEN, I mean they're not perfect but they still will work and you've actually got something to work with that doesn’t incentivise you to think of forestry. So I think although they're well meaning (Climate Change Commission) with what they're trying to do I don't think they're quite grasping how these extensive sheep and beef properties actually work.”

And her view on the ETS?

“If we were really economically driven here we would just go out and plant a big square of trees on the farm, but it's not about that, right? In terms wholesale land use change to forestry, effective environmental policy changes behaviour or it drives that practice change in a way that is appropriate for the needs of rural communities. And we all know the history around forestry like forestry has its place it's a really important part of our country, but we've seen what it can do to rural communities and at the moment that economic drive, it's not appropriate for the needs of rural communities, and it's not being recognised.”

These areas will continue to be areas of interest for me in 2023, they are very important, and we need to get them right in order for farmers and the country to prosper.

That’s all from me for 2022, have a wonderful Christmas everyone, oh and if you run into a farmer on your travels, give him or her a high five and tell them they are doing a good job, because they are.

Merry Christmas and catch you next year.

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Angus Kebbell is the Producer at Tailwind Media. You can contact him here.