29 CN0004 Ag Sector Farmer Leaders discussion grp 4 Palmerston North 25 Oct.pdf

Consultation Event Feedback Template

Instructions:
•
One template is to be fil ed in per consultation event and provided to Al en + Clarke following each consultation event for
inclusion in the overall analysis. In the first instance, the primary audience is Al en + Clarke, who wil  focus thematic feedback, but these
wil  also serve as our primary record/notes for each session.
•
Use the prompts provided as suggestions to capture as much information as possible. However, you do not have to answer
every prompt, and can vary from the specific question if this wil  better capture the themes and information provided in the session.
•
Capture as many Q&As as possible in the designated row, and duplicate the row for each new question. If you know that the
question has already come up and been answered similarly, or exists in our FAQs, you can make a call on either not capturing it or
referencing the relevant FAQ.
•
Please file here, or email to 9(2)(g)(ii)
if you cannot access the link.
Date:
25/10/2022
Meeting type:
Ag sector leaders group – Palmerston North
MfE/MPI staff:
Hemi Smiler, Darran Austin, Kate Simpson, Kara Lok, Alistair Beveridge, Shannon Bentley, and Glen Lauder
(facilitator).
Number of attendees:
13
Demographic of attendees (if
9(2)(a)
Dairy NZ
possible, e.g. farmer, NGO, Māori,
Deer Industry NZ
general public):

FAR (arable)
Dairy NZ
Dairy NZ
Dairy NZ
Beef & Lamb
Beef & Lamb
Beef & Lamb
Beef & Lamb
Beef & Lamb
Maori Agribusiness sector

Prompt
Stakeholder feedback
Emissions reporting
Who did attendees think should be

responsible for reporting and paying for
emissions?
What feedback did attendees have on the
thresholds set for farms to report
emissions?
What did attendees believe would need to be
in place to include collectives in the pricing
scheme?
Did attendees believe farms wil  have the
necessary data for reporting by 2025?
What feedback did attendees have on

registration requirements?

Did attendees raise any concerns about
reporting and payment timing?
o  Nitrous oxide – is measuring and pricing it an unnecessary complication? Given the
Did attendees believe there are any
cap with freshwater, and stocking rates likely to reduce. Can we park nitrous oxide
opportunities to improve the proposed
and focus on methane for a simpler system? Another farmer said that the price of
approach to reporting emissions?
fertilizer is going higher and higher, but pricing its emissions makes it fair across
subsectors (e.g pastural and cropping).
Question:
New/thorny questions asked by attendees
[Duplicate this row as needed]
Answer:
  Pricing, revenue and incentive payments
What concerns did attendees have around
•   Free allocation – no farmer wanted this because it is the wrong image for the industry
the proposed approach to setting levy
prices?
– image being that farmers are polluting but they get a subsidy.
Did attendees offer any improvements to the
•  Scary that the government is controlling the target and the price. Needs to remove
proposed approach to setting levy prices?
politics of price setting.

•  Farmers would like to have clarity over price and what it will be. We don’t know who
will set the price. If we have an idea about what the liability, we can act on it, and we
can pull some of these issues down
•  Large concern over the impacts on red meat sector. Suggested that we could

differentiate and change the price between sheep and beef and dairy.
What feedback did attendees have on the
proposed revenue recycling strategy?
What did attendees think about an advisory
•

   Q: If get credits back – is that taxable income?
board for revenue recycling?
What transitional support did attendees say
was needed?
What approaches did attendees support for
incentivising mitigation practices or
technologies?

What mitigation practices or technologies
did attendees think should be supported by
an incentive payment?
Question:
New/thorny questions asked by attendees
[Duplicate this row as needed]
Answer:

Pricing carbon sequestration and nitrogen fertiliser
•   Currently mitigation technology is unproven and unavailable. Therefore only option
What feedback did attendees have on the
is to plant to reduce emissions.
proposed approach to carbon
•  Riparian vegetation is not going to meet the threshold. Official: There is no size
sequestration?
threshold yet, and we would like to hear about that from you.
What barriers did attendees raise to
•  Is anyone going to fix the ETS? Official mentioned there was a review occurring.
including new categories of sequestration in
•  Suggested freshwater farm plan audits also monitor sequestration to reduce audit
the NZ ETS?
burden.
Did attendees have any concerns about
•   Where is sequestration being paid from? Stuff is really hard to get into the ETS. Why
bringing on-farm vegetation into a farm-
pricing system?
is the Government not adopting the most updated technology help with this? A: We
are reviewing and updating our inventory. There are a number of research initiatives.
Private sector needs to get to the threshold of entry.

•


Did attendees prefer pricing nitrogen at the
farm level or at the processer level? Why?     Question:
New/thorny questions asked by attendees
[Duplicate this row as needed]
Answer:

Future enhancements
Did attendees prefer a tradeable methane
quota? What benefits did they cite?
What concerns did attendees have about

tradeable methane quotas?
•   No way we can set up a system at farm level for 2025, so processor hybrid likely.
•  Concern about having 2 systems (processor levy and farm levy) and that it would be
What concerns did attendees share about an
better to have more certainty.
interim processer-level levy?
What alternatives to an interim processer-
•  At the processor level – Fonterra is already collecting data. Why can’t we use this for
level levy did attendees share?
the processor level? Noted that Sheep and beef is very different and not advanced.
•  Is it better to stretch it out a year to get it right so it is better for farmers and for

government?
Question: Do you think this is a fair and just transition?

Answer:
There are choices we need to make – what does NZ look like in 2050 – we are a technology
New/thorny questions asked by attendees
[Duplicate this row as needed]
taker, and we don’t know when those techs will be there. We are trying to signal change now
that is, to adjust to the change. This is not unique to the farming community. There are going
to be impacts on communities, and how can we help reduce those impacts. Also heard about
how this is rubbing up against FFWP community. And science and targets – there is a need
for some sort of cimate information centre for people to go that is not
Impacts and support
How did attendees believe the system would
impact
•
them?
   Leakage – New Zealand sheep and beef is most efficient in the world, yet the most
What support did attendees believe wil  be
impacted system. Another farmer observed that it is NZ agricultural  we have to look
needed?
inwards and see how we can make this fair. We are going to pay for pricing scheme,

or climate change. Soon we will be paying twice. We will have to pay for both
climate change and pricing scheme.
•  View in the room that customers do not want climate neutral / positive products yet.
Farmers said it would be good to see science, instead of ideology in customer
preference studies.
•  Mention that the Governments leakage work doesn’t mention deer. New Zealand
supplies 40% of the worlds venison exports so the leakage will be even worse than for
sheep meat.
•  Large concern about losing processor space due to reduced profitability. If we lose
shelf space for a season, then NZ may end up missing out on the processor space
which is taken up by other countries.
•


•   Rural communities – how are we going to reduce the impacts on the communities?
o  We don’t want trees because they wreck the towns infrastructure, and
community.
•  Mental health of the rural sector. What is the long-term cost of mental health – across
the sector and all communities associated. This policy is already impacting mental
health because of the uncertainty.
What impact did attendees think the pricing
o  Mention that it is harder to run a business because profit margin keeps
scheme wil  have on their communities?
shrinking.
How can rural communities be supported?
o  labour shortages also occurring so farmers are working overtime.
o  Ability to understand and deal with this policy and climate change is reducing.
o  Wrapping support around the rural communities – e.g. mental health support
is not out there or ready. Needs to be better now. Really massive problem
•  Farmers going out of business will cause downstream impacts of other business
behind them going under also.

o
Did attendees share specific impacts for
Māori?
How did attendees think the Crown should
protect relevant iwi and Māori interests?

Question: What has the modelling shown about the GDP of the country?
New/thorny questions asked by attendees
[Duplicate this row as needed]
Answer:  Modelling didn’t look at that.

Implementation, verification, compliance and enforcement
What feedback did attendees have on the
proposed governance structure?
What did attendees think should be included
in the post-implementation review in 2030?
What feedback did attendees have on the
proposed approach to monitoring and
verification?

Did attendees support a government-run or
third-party verification system? Why?
Who did attendees believe should fund the
administration of the scheme?
Did attendees have feedback on the

proposed approach to cost-recovery?
Question:
New/thorny questions asked by attendees
[Duplicate this row as needed]
Answer:

Other/General
•  Questioning of targets with a general consensus that they are wrong and do not use
the most up to date science. Questions were asked if there is a process to update
targets and legislation to follow improvements in science.
o  Farming community hears David Frame promoting GWP* and saying
Governments current greenhouse gas metrics are out of date. Feels like the
Did attendees have any other feedback on
government is deliberately not using GWP*.
the proposals?
o  Feels unfair because it seems to the rural sector that they have
o  to cool the planet by sacrificing their businesses, while watching the rest of the
country continue emitting long-lived gases.
o  One farmer observed that all metrics have flaws, and that it is better to have a
per tonne measurement.

o  Question was asked about what happens when farmers have reached their
targets? Answered: Price of methane is to be set to the targets, and be reduced
if overshooting
o  Feels like a shifting target – how do we know when do we know when we get
there. Why is 2017 the starting time? How do we know if we moved towards
reaching the target? A farmer shared that Fed farmers have figures that we
have not made progress towards the 10% reduction.
•  HWEN partners did this proposal without support of their levy payers. Red meat
sector do not agree to a 20% decrease in revenue.
•  Freshwater policy and He Waka Eke Noa – Two systems conflict each other:
o  Reducing emissions is about improving efficiency, and improving water
quality is about reducing intensification to reduce nutrient loads.
o  By reducing the amount of dry matter intake that goes into the product is most
efficient for reducing greenhouse gases. This is done with break feeding, and
high-quality feed, which leads to intensive systems, which goes against
freshwater policy.
o  There are 2 sources of emissions – intensity per ha and efficiency (intensity
per product). So, to meet both regulations, we are going to have to drop the
stocking rate and lower the amount of dry matter. Less intensity and less
productivity. This means we are producing less, and via supply and demand
principals – make more money. But then food security becomes an issue.
•  Concern about what happens if the mitigations (feed additives, bolus etc) don’t work.
•  If no other country has done this, then will we back out of this a few years later? If we
do this and no one else does anything, then we face all the consequences (pay for
climate change and for our emissions)
•  Information of this policy is to long to read and hard to understand. People don’t have
time to calculate their emission numbers. 95% of farmers don’t understand this, and
don’t know their numbers. Just trying to get through their day job.
•  Concern about lack of systems view thinking – impact on emissions of people moving
from agriculture to other sectors such as tourism.

•  Farmer recommend that Government should accept all the recommendations from
HWEN because they managed to get everyone there. Noted that Governments

proposals are worse because they have been carved out.
Question:
New/thorny questions asked by attendees
[Duplicate this row as needed]
Answer: