Marble Point Station is just another property affected by the official drive to only partially count actual sequestration by formally excluding large stands of native bush. Actual carbon-neutral is twisted into a pretend carbon deficit

This week on Factum-Agri farmer Sara Black joined me to discuss how the summer season is going and what the big issues are for farmers currently.

Sara Black and husband Matt, with their two children, farm at Marble Point Station, which is a 2400ha hill country property located halfway between Hanmer Springs and Culverden in North Canterbury. They farm in an equity partnership with the Wilson family from West Melton. 4,000 Corriedale ewes and 400 Angus breeding cows are farmed between Marble Point and their 70ha block down the road. The 70ha block is a substantial help because there they finish all their progeny.

The summer has been pretty kind to the Black’s, they have picked up reasonable amounts of rain over the last couple of months which has keep the grass growing and the creeks flowing. They measured 70 mills and the gauge over January which has kept them ticking along.

“I think Canterbury by and large is faring pretty well this summer which is reflective of the La Niña system, so it's been slightly cooler and there's been a little bit more humidity and rain, which makes a bit of a change from the typical hot dry East Coast summer.”

Farmers might be enjoying a bit more grass about over summer, one thing they are not enjoying is softer lamb prices. Demand from China for sheep meet has dropped due to strict lockdowns and tighter economic conditions, which has forced some consumers to trade down to lower-priced proteins. The recovery of lamb production in Australia will also increase supply to market which could further support lower farmgate returns on sheep meat for New Zealand into 2023.

“The lamb price has been pretty disappointing this year because we've had a pretty good lambing, the weather's been good and the lambs have grown out really well. But as the season's gone on, we've just watched the schedule slowly drop down. This week I think it's sitting at about $6.50 a kilo whereas this time last year it was closer to $8.00. So we budgeted reasonably conservatively that the prices we're getting obviously below that figure, and that is going to have an impact on our budgeting and our planning in the short term.”

Sara says that downward pressure on lamb prices adds to pressures that exist with mounting policy pressure. Sequestration is not being accurately recognised or measured.

“The reality is we have large stands of existing native bush, Manuka, Kanuka, and Kowhai on the farm and a significant amount of scrub such as Matagouri, and possibly close to 1000 hectares of tussock land. All of that when you look around is sequestering carbon, but it doesn't meet the criteria of the ETS. So potentially we may be carbon neutral if you took into account all that vegetation, but the equation just doesn't include that second half. And so we worked out our carbon footprint last year, and based on the suggested pricing the annual liability without discounts came out at over $230,000 a year. It's a significant cost that would mean we would have to change something that we were doing, we couldn't keep farming while bearing that cost year to year. Which seems crazy when sheep and beef farmers have one of the lowest carbon footprints in the world. And yet by pricing emissions we would be reducing our production which would potentially move offshore.”

Yes, it’s election year and it will be a significant one for this nation and for our farmers. If we are going to bring in a emissions tax on farmers, then get the equation right. We have to recognise and calculate all on-farm sequestration, because unless this is counted there can’t be a net emission profile.

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