He Waka Eke Noa: It’s gone.
The Coalition announced earlier this week the partnership, which was tasked with pricing agricultural emissions, will be disbanded.
Introduced in 2008, He Waka Eke Noa was a partnership between Government agencies, the primary sector and iwi that came up with a proposal for how to price agricultural emissions. It was intended as an alternative to bringing agriculture under the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS).
The government has said He Waka Eke Noa wasn't working and they need to constructively work with the farming sector.
New Zealand’s agricultural producers are known as the greenest farmers in the world... if we make life too hard for them… drive them out of business, then production will move overseas and the world will be worse off. The world will be warmer and New Zealand will be poorer.
"It's time for a fresh start on how we engage with farmers and processors to work on biogenic methane."
The Government has announced it will establish a new Pasture Sector Group to tackle biogenic methane.
The Labour MP, Willie Jackson was seen on TV today - saying the partnership was killed by environmentalists and "nutjob farmers".
I personally don’t understand how he can make such a statement given the fact that the farmers in New Zealand rely on the land for their income and there is no way that that makes them “nutjobs” in any shape or form.
In fact most farmers are better stewards of their land than many urban dwellers who seem quite content to destroy nature so that they can go about their city lifestyles without a care about nature or the environment.
It is claimed that agricultural emissions make up 50 percent of New Zealand's gross emissions, including most nitrous oxide and biogenic methane. But the fact is that under the current system of measuring emissions there is no provision for including the sequestration of carbon through grass pasture.
Emissions from agriculture are usually measured as CO2 equivalents and reducing emissions is done by way of fixing carbon in the vegetation and soils of the farming operations (known as ‘Carbon Sequestration’).
National data on net carbon sequestration by trees within farms equates to 29% of the total on-farm GHG emissions.
To recognise and encourage carbon sequestration on farmland, an accurate and comprehensive estimate of net emissions and removals from vegetation and soils on farmland is required.
A report prepared by Auckland University of Technology, estimated woody vegetation on sheep and beef farms may be offsetting 63 to 118 per cent of the gross agricultural emissions from this sector (Case and Ryan, 2020).
In contrast, the findings of a report prepared by the Ministry for the Environment indicated net carbon dioxide removals are 63 per cent lower than the midpoint estimate of the Auckland University of Technology report by Case and Ryan (2020), equivalent to 33 per cent of the on-farm agricultural emissions.
This MfE report claimed to provide a robust and up-to-date estimate of net carbon dioxide removals occurring on sheep and beef farmland.
But, whilst both of these reports are related to sheep and beef farmland only, neither of them takes into account the carbon sequestration from grass pasture.
Across the whole of the agricultural sector including all types of pastoral farming there is no account taken of the ability for grass pasture to sequester carbon.
The carbon sequestration from pastoral farming is currently ignored and surely this must mean that the basis for analysis of the GHG emissions from farming is based on flawed science and therefore gives an incorrect measure of the actual emissions from farming.
When people look at farming they think of greenhouse gas emissions yet farming systems are actually sequestering carbon and the carbon sequestration from grass pasture is totally ignored when discussing emissions from farming.
According to a paper published called Phase 3 Multivariate analysis of Greenhouse Gas emissions from sheep and beef farms – April 2020 (https://www.nzagrc.org.nz/assets/Publications/Multivariate-analysis-of-GHG-from-sheep-and-beef-farms_April-2020.pdf) it takes up to 7 tonnes of CO2 to grow a hectare of grass on the farm.
Grass pasture is produced in what is known as biogenic carbon cycle where plants remove carbon dioxide (CO₂) from the atmosphere and deposit carbon into plant leaves, roots, and stems while oxygen is released back into the atmosphere.
The farm turns those 7 tonnes of CO2 per hectare into enough feed for 10 ewes. Those 10 ewes each emit about 20 – 22 grams of methane a day which means they produce in total 80 kgs of methane per year. It is accepted that methane is a more potent greenhouse gas than CO2 – generally regarded as 7 times stronger. If we multiply our ewe’s 80 kgs of methane by 7 we get 560 kgs of CO2 equivalent.
The farm is therefore, using approximately 12 times more CO2 than it emits. A car owner cannot say that, or a coal fired boiler, or a private jet going to a climate conference. Farmers are not quite the villains they are made out to be.
It is only fair that if the discussions are to be held around the detrimental effects of farming on the environment, then the beneficial effects should also be part of the discussion to reflect the reality of the situation and bring some much needed balance to the discussions.
The world needs agriculture in all its different forms to ensure the population can be fed so any discussion should be based on science and include all of the relevant information that gives a realistic starting point when discussing rules around agriculture.
New Zealand is reliant on agricultural exports for the vast majority of our overseas income yet under the Labour government we were making it harder for the agricultural sector to produce these export commodities through using the agricultural production sectors to meet our agreed reduction targets for GHG emissions under the Paris Accord, even though this agreement specifically excludes food production from reductions.
Food production was judged as being of such a necessity that the Paris Accord actually exempted food production, under article 2B, from the requirements of reductions in carbon footprint based on security of food supplies.
Unlike the current situation where the beneficial effects of carbon sequestration from grass pastures in agriculture, have been totally removed from the discussion and there is no balance.
The failure to include the beneficial effects, (from carbon sequestration through to security of food supply) highlights the inequity in the current discussions where agriculture is being unfairly portrayed as a destroyer of the natural environment, when in actual fact it is no worse or better than other parts of society as we see it today.
Farming is currently being asked to lower its carbon footprint to comply with New Zealand’s Paris agreement requirements when in fact if the true picture is used which includes the total carbon sequestration from all forms of on farm vegetation (including grass pastures), then the farming industry will be seen to be nowhere near as bad as it has been portrayed in discussions up to now.
Even taking into account just the National data on net carbon sequestration by trees within farms which equates to 29% of the total on-farm GHG emissions, the farming industry in New Zealand has definitely been poorly served by government, in the whole discussion around GHG’s and farming’s part in New Zealand’s emission levels.
About 25 percent of global carbon emissions are captured by plant-rich landscapes such as forests, grasslands and pastures. When leaves and branches fall off plants or when plants die, the carbon stored either releases into the atmosphere or is transferred into the soil. Wildfires and human activities like deforestation can contribute to the diminishment of forests as a carbon sink.
While forests are commonly credited as important carbon sinks, they are rapidly becoming more carbon sources due to rising temperatures and impact of drought and wildfires in recent years. Pastures are more reliable than forests in today’s world mainly because they don’t get hit as hard as forests by droughts and wildfires.
Unlike trees, pastures sequester most of their carbon underground. When they burn, the carbon stays fixed in the roots and soil instead of in leaves and woody biomass. Forests have the ability to store more carbon, but unlike pasture when they burn they release most of the stored carbon back into the atmosphere.
We like to eat and we want to breathe clean air and be confident that our planet will be left in acceptable – or even good – shape for our children, for their children and for many generations after them and to do this we need to better understand the role of agriculture in nourishing our world, while also focusing attention on cleaner air and a healthy climate.
The regulatory changes that were proposed by the Labour government even according to their own admissions would have resulted in a significant portion of the industry being forced off their land due to the requirements for those proposed reductions in GHG emissions.
Given that the carbon sequestration from grass pasture is measured at 12 times above the current level of emissions from the same operation yet this is not currently being taken into account, the agricultural industry can rightly feel aggrieved by Labour’s proposed reductions in their levels of emissions.
If we also were to take into account the differences between short lived GHG’s (Methane) & long lived GHG’s (Carbon Dioxide) and recognise that farming mainly produces methane, we can see even more clearly how poorly the farming industry has been treated by the Labour government through their total ignorance of the offsetting from “all”
on farm vegetation sequestering carbon.
The Labour Government’s own modelling suggested that the result of their reduction proposals for emissions would have seen sheep and beef farming reduced by 20% and dairying by 5%. This is equivalent to the entire wine industry and half of the seafood industry in New Zealand being wiped out.
It seems that there is a belief that farming is the main cause of our GHG emissions and also that it will be the cure-all for those emissions, when in fact it is just one of the causes and will be only one of the sectors required to take actions to reduce our emissions.
The Labour government’s proposed scale of the requirements on farming in relation to GHG emissions would have only had the effect of endangering our country’s economy, our farmer’s economic survival and security of our food supply.
The reality is that farming was being dealt a rotten hand by the people who were supposed to represent it and the Labour Government did nothing to help the industry given their continued use of incorrect facts as a basis for making emissions policies, including their declaration of a climate emergency.
The outcome remains to be seen over time but I believe that the current government’s decision to disband the He Waka Eke Noa partnership was the right decision; if they follow the science of biogenic methane production and take into account all forms of carbon sequestration we will end up with a system which is both fit for purpose and which will ensure our carbon emissions meet with our agreed levels.
It is a proven fact that plants, including trees and all our food crops, are capable of growing much faster at higher levels of CO₂ than present in the atmosphere today. Even at the today’s concentration of 400 ppm plants are relatively starved for nutrition. The optimum level of CO₂ for plant growth is about 5 times higher, 2000 ppm, yet the alarmists warn it is already too high. They must be challenged every day by every person who knows the truth in this matter. CO₂ is the giver of life and we should celebrate CO₂ rather than denigrate it as is the fashion today.
We may be witnessing the “Greening of the Earth” as higher levels of CO₂, promote increased growth of plants around the world, which has been confirmed by scientists with CSIRO in Australia, in Germany, and in North America.
If CO₂ levels in the atmosphere were to fall to below a minimum of 150 ppm the survival of plants will be threatened and if plants die all the animals, insects, and other invertebrates that depend on the plants for their survival will also die.
How long will it be at the present level of CO₂ depletion until most or all of life on Earth is threatened with extinction by lack of CO₂ in the atmosphere?
Climate change activists say that food production is destroying the planet but in fact the food producers rely on the land to make a living and the vast majority use best practical options to ensure that they maintain or improve the land they use for their food production operations.
It is now a well-established practice for them to put back native species of plants and trees where possible and to increase biodiversity by making ponds and lakes where wetland plants, insects, and waterfowl can become established.
Yes there will always be a small number of food producers who believe they can ignore the rules and the food production industry in general supports these bad apples being removed from the industry for the benefit of all citizens and the environment.
The food producers believe that land should be used for food production in a sustainable manner and that we get the food security that is required to ensure our populations survival.
In conclusion I believe that we need to remember that carbon dioxide is the gas of life, indeed the backbone of life on Earth rather than the devil that it is being portrayed as by many environmental commentators.