Meeting the requirements of the Zero Carbon Bill, now going through Parliament, will squeeze livestock farmers on one side by trees offsetting carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel emitters and on the other by farmers required to meet methane emission targets.
The Real Estate Institute has confirmed rural community leaders’ fears Government planting incentives have made forestry an attractive investment, evident by national forest land prices increasing 45%. The prices have almost doubled in the North Island but fell 4% in the South Island.
The Zero Carbon Bill splits greenhouse gas targets with gross methane emissions to be reduced by 10% of 2017 levels by 2030 and by 24% to 47% by 2050. Farmers cannot offset methane emissions with trees, unlike those emitting carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide.
Up to two million hectares of new forestry is expected to be planted to offset those gas emissions and help the country become carbon neutral by 2050.
Rabobank’s animal protein and sustainability analyst Blake Holgate said breeding and farm management can reduce methane emissions by up to 10% but further gains will be difficult.
“Achieving deeper reduction will likely require productivity gains while not increasing production, new technology and land use change.”
In the absence of tools and practices he warns the only way to significantly reduce methane emissions is to reduce stock numbers.
Documents prepared by the Ministry for the Environment (MFE), the Institute of Economic Research (NZIER) and the Biological Emissions Reference Group (Berg) all acknowledge that without methane reducing technology, such as a vaccine, farmers have few options to meet higher reduction targets without reducing livestock numbers.
A Federated Farmers study has calculated every 1% reduction in methane emissions will cost the country $300 million in production.
NZIER is predicting the cost to the economy from the Zero Carbon Bill will be $66.4 billion by 2050.
A Berg report said dairy can reduce methane emissions by up to 10% through breeding and feeding.
Similarly, breeding and feeding can reduce emissions from sheep and beef farms by up to 5% but then they have few options.
Berg forecasts stock numbers to fall as increasing carbon prices lift the cost of energy-intensive inputs such as fertiliser and supplementary feed.
Dairy farmers will respond by running fewer but more productive cows but for sheep and beef Berg forecasts significant land use change with more forestry and lower stocking rates, especially for breeding cows.
The various reports all have a high degree of confidence a methane vaccine will be available from about 2030 which will reduce emissions in individual animals by 30%.
The Pastoral Greenhouse Gas Research Consortium has spent about $80 million since 2003 searching for a scientific solution to biological greenhouse gas emissions.
The issue hindering methane reduction is the correlation between the forage fed to ruminants and the volume of methane produced.
For each kilogram of drymatter eaten a ruminant will produce 22 grams of methane but an analysis by Federated Farmers shows NZ farmers have been successful in reducing emissions per kilogram of output, also known as methane intensity.
NZ dairy farmers average 0.8 to 0.9kg of methane per kilo of fat and protein-corrected milk compared to the global average of 2.5kg of methane.
Similarly, NZ sheep farmers average 1.9kg of methane per 100 grams of lamb compared to the world average of 2.6kg.
Despite inclusion in the Emissions Trading Scheme since 2008 carbon dioxide emissions from transport grew 84% between 1990 and 2017. In contrast methane emissions from livestock have fallen 7.5% since 1990 and stabilised since 2000.
Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment Simon Upton has warned allowing fossil fuel emitters to offset their emissions with forestry is not a permanent solution.
“Fossil emissions need to be reduced to zero by the second half of the century. That should be the aim. Reducing them by only half that and claiming to have managed the problem by planting forest sinks to cover the rest is a poor alternative.”
Because methane and nitrous oxide do not accumulate in the atmosphere as carbon dioxide does, the commissioner argued their levels do not need to be cut to zero and farmers should be allowed to offset their emissions with trees.
That was rejected by the Government, but it has promised a review of those targets by the independent Climate Change Commission in 2024 which will take account of changes in scientific knowledge and other developments.
