TAUMARUNUI farmer and farm consultant Geoff Burton says around 10,000 ha of good hill country, including three large stations, have been signed up to forestry interests in recent months. PHOTO SUPPLIED
Ruapehu mayor Weston Kirton wants immediate government action to address the threat posed by carbon farming to productive farmland and rural communities.
‘In regions that are seeing a rapid pace of carbon farm conversions rural communities are fearing for their future,’ he said.
‘They are seeing the loss of significant areas of productive land with flow-on impacts including the loss of skills, employment, economic activity and community identity, along with negative environmental outcomes.
“In my local area around Taumarunui around 10,000ha of good hill country, including three large stations, have been signed up for sale to corporate forestry interests in recent months in addition to several thousand hectares of previously converted hill country farms.’
Weston said he received overwhelming support for his call for urgent action on carbon farming from the 18 central North Island councils at the Local Government New Zealand (LGNZ) Zone 3 regional meeting last week.
Calls for immediate Government action were only going to get louder as the pace of carbon farm conversions grew and councils faced a loss of local population, employment, economic activity, and their rating base, he said.
While he said there was no doubt that reducing carbon emissions was essential to combat climate change, New Zealand needed solutions that were not at the expense of hill country farmers and rural communities.
“It is not about stopping carbon farming but stopping the way it is currently being allowed to take place,” Weston said. “Rural councils want to see government policy or legislative change to enable us to manage this risk at a local council level.
“We would like to see planters being required to work with councils to minimise the impact on at risk communities, financial bonds in the event of a ‘walk away’, 50-metre fire setbacks, a differential rating of carbon farms to mitigate any economic, social, cultural, or environmental losses, and the ability for councils to oppose farm conversions where it exceeds certain thresholds.”
In the interim he was urging carbon farmers to work with their local council to find solutions that benefitted everyone.
“We all need to work together to find solutions that address both climate change and the needs of hill country farmers and rural communities,’ he said.
Taumarunui farmer and farm consultant Geoff Burton said the large-scale conversion of good farmland for carbon farming, was the greatest threat to the long-term viability and wellbeing of rural communities and towns that he’s been part of during seven decades in the region.
“It appears that our local councils are beginning to realise this emerging threat, but that Central Government does not, or will not appreciate the seriousness of the situation,” Geoff said.
“My understanding is that, in the Taumarunui district alone, around 10,000ha of good hill country, including three large stations, have been signed up for sale to corporate forestry interests in recent months. This is in addition to several thousand ha of previously converted hill country.”
Meassuring the economic effect of the 10,000ha conversion on the local community could be done by assuming the area would carry around 10 stock units per ha or 100,000su, he said. With income to the farmers of $100/su equalling $10 million, and expenses of $60/su at $6m, leaving $4m profit apportioned to drawings, dividends, development, new plant and tax.
“I calculate about $5m of the expenses and $1.5m of the profit go directly to local wages and services provided by local businesses. This is significant for the local community,” Geoff said.
“If this land is purchased by interests residing outside the district and converted to forestry, and especially for carbon farming, there will be a quadruple whammy of negative effects to hit our community.”
They include the immediate and permanent reduction in employment and economic activity partially quantified above, offset slightly during the establishment of the forest.
An ongoing lack of economic benefit due to any carbon income not coming to the local community.
Plus increasing costs to neighbours and ratepayers due to the increase in weeds and pests, particularly blackberry, tutsan, deer, pigs and goats – which was already already occurring, Geoff said.
“Particular threats to our district when the price of carbon collapses – as it surely will due to it’s politically driven and inherently self-defeating model – and the owners walk away.”
The threats included uncontrolled weeds and pests, run down roading and infrastructure, reduced and non-recovered rates, negative effects on other land users including tourism and a significant reduction in the value of affected farmland.
“Of course, there is also the major threat, as we have recently seen in the aftermath of Cyclone Gabrielle, of huge damage to the Whanganui River and its tributaries, should we experience a similar weather event here, where semi mature and mature forest is washed into the waterways,” Geoff said.
“Our communities’ major resources are primarily twofold: our land and our people. For the sake of our future generations and Aotearoa New Zealand in general, we must – at all costs – protect both these assets.
“The sad thing is that the conversion from the production of low-risk protein from this land to very high risk carbon, will not result in cooling the planet or enhancing New Zealand’s international image.”
Instead it would promote the production of protein from less carbon efficient countries, exacerbate NZ’s increasingly undesirable image as a carbon off-setter rather than a carbon reducer, and reduce the national income, Geoff said.
“This sorry saga of sacrificing our hill country to carbon farming demonstrates a huge disrespect for the communities which depend on it and an ignorance of its importance to the nation’s economy.”
“The NZ hill country sector is proven to be one of, if not the most, carbon efficient producers of red meat in the world.
“Yet we as a nation are sacrificing it – and for what?”
