That new income will be in NZ dollars only and derived from the NZ market, Davison told farmers at Limestone Downs Station’s annual open day.
“Effectively, we’ve turned an export hectare into an import hectare.
“If we go to put a million hectares of hill country in trees under ETS we are going to take out $1.25 billion of export receipts and put in something like a couple billion of NZ dollars.”
The fall in export dollars would push the value of the NZ currency down – a favourable outcome for those who stay in farming.
But the export dollars from the pastoral sector amounted to $25 billion in the 2018-19 year with dairy contributing $15b and red meat around $10b.
Discussions around where to plant more trees for forestry have to be looked at in the context of the production gains the pastoral sector has made since 1991 when the lambing percentage was 100. Last spring that percentage was 131 and in 2019-2020 was 127.
“NZ’s silicone valley of excellence is our pastoral sector.
The lambs produced are also bigger and heavier.
“Likewise, in the dairy industry, milk production has increased 48% from 259kg MS to 383kg MS a cow.
“They are phenomenal productivity increases.
“We haven’t seen that elsewhere in the economy,” he said.
To produce the tonnage of lamb from the 2018-19 season using 1990-1991 levels of performance farmers would need 16 million more ewes to produce 12.7m more lambs and an extra 4.8m more slaughter lambs at lighter weights to reach the export tonnage.
BLNZ favours a mosaic approach to livestock and carbon farming where livestock are on country best suited for pasture.
Contour and the accessibility for forestry harvest mean some farmland is not suitable for harvest if planted in trees because foresters want trees near roads and on land that is not too steep.
“But for conservation and carbon farming there’s possibly a good fit with livestock.”
It is setting up the farm for future generations rather than a one-term hit, he said.
