Al en + Clarke
Agricultural Emissions Pricing Consultation – The Ministry for the Environment and the Ministry for Primary Industries
Consultation Event Feedback Template
Instructions:
• One template is to be fil ed in per consultation event and provided to Allen + 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:
9 November 2022
Meeting type:
In person
MfE/MPI staff:
Julie Collins, Raniera Bassett, Waitai Petera, Kate Simpson, Warren Gray, Oliver Powell, Angela
Christensen, Margie Wheeler, Troy Para, Malcolm Welsh
Number of attendees:
13 (including govt)
1
Al en + Clarke
Agricultural Emissions Pricing Consultation – The Ministry for the Environment and the Ministry for Primary Industries
Date:
9 November 2022
Demographic of attendees (if Sector leaders
possible, e.g. farmer, NGO,
Māori, general public):
Prompt
Stakeholder feedback
Emissions reporting
Who did attendees think should be
responsible for
reporting and paying
for
emissions?
What feedback did attendees have on
Note that collectives are important, because instead of giving out credit to those
the
thresholds set for farms to report who have more sequestration than emissions those farmers could be in a
emissions?
collective and share the benefit.
What did attendees believe would need
to be in place to
include collectives in
the pricing scheme?
Did attendees believe farms will have
the
necessary data for reporting by
2025?
2
Al en + Clarke
Agricultural Emissions Pricing Consultation – The Ministry for the Environment and the Ministry for Primary Industries
What feedback did attendees have on
registration requirements?
Did attendees raise any concerns
about
reporting and payment timing?
Did attendees believe there are any
opportunities to improve the proposed
approach to
reporting emissions?
Question:
New/thorny questions asked by
attendees
Answer:
[Duplicate this row as needed]
Pricing, revenue and incentive payments
• There are potential unintended consequences where methane emissions
What
concerns did attendees have
could go up as people breed more to ensure profits
around the proposed approach to
• Farmers don’t trust any government-imposed scheme that could benefit
setting levy prices?
them because government collapsed the ETS. They don’t trust government
Did attendees offer any
improvements
to set the price fairly.
to the proposed approach to
setting
• A lot of people want government to openly say that they are going hard on
levy prices?
methane to give more time for CO2 reductions.
3
Al en + Clarke
Agricultural Emissions Pricing Consultation – The Ministry for the Environment and the Ministry for Primary Industries
What feedback did attendees have on
the proposed
revenue recycling
• Money needs to go into incentives/research - this is hugely important
strategy?
because we don’t have options
• Revenue needs to be available to fund incentives and sequestration
What did attendees think about an
because people may only be able to do one or the other. If everyone is just
advisory board for revenue
offsetting, we won’t be able to meet our gross reductions in methane
recycling?
• More research is needed into soil carbon, and all the research needs to go
into what is best practice
• I don’t use supplement and won’t start just to feed an inhibitor when I have
enough grass
What
transitional support did
• Selecting breeding based on DNA is on the way, but won’t be ready for
attendees say was needed?
2025
• If we have payouts for people who end up in net credit this wil create a
What approaches did attendees support
mini-ETS
for
incentivising mitigation practices
• Farmers wil respond to price signals - if it wil benefit their business to
or technologies?
uptake mitigations they wil do it
What
mitigation practices or
• We can’t rely on planting/sequestration - it is a short term measure, and we
technologies did attendees think
need to be able to find something to get rid of our methane
should be
supported by an incentive
• For some people, the best option is to help them out of the industry (e.g.
payment?
those at the end of their working career, without other things than profit
keeping them on the land). However there are potential knock on social
impacts for communities when these people exit
•
4
Al en + Clarke
Agricultural Emissions Pricing Consultation – The Ministry for the Environment and the Ministry for Primary Industries
Question: What wil the admin costs look like?
New/thorny questions asked by
attendees
Answer: if we can piggyback off the IRD system these wil be lower
[Duplicate this row as needed]
Pricing carbon sequestration and nitrogen fertiliser
• There is lots of indigenous sequestration in place already in Northland
compared to other places. Participant had issues with the level of
sequestration recognised, & considered that the contract system “didn’t
exhibit the amount of trust that we normally see in society”. The contract
What feedback did attendees have on
system is overbearing - you can’t practically check every detail, so trust is
the proposed approach to
carbon
needed in those working on the ground
sequestration?
• A lot of farms in Northland don’t have opportunities for riparian planting, just
What
barriers did attendees raise to
patches of bush
including new categories of
• Perverse incentive - I would return land to wetland, but if it’s not recognised
sequestration in the NZ ETS?
as sequestration I wil need extra income from that land and wil (have to)
farm it instead. Farmers are acting as stewards of the land and don’t feel
Did attendees have any
concerns
trusted.
about bringing
on-farm vegetation into
• If we can promote fencing off areas of indigenous bush that wil be a big win
a farm-pricing system?
- there are opportunities to increase this across Northland (and there is
already a lot). Once bush is fenced off, it just takes off in Northland - there’s
no deer - easy to control with good trapping programmes
• Participant said technology is at a point that anything that’s fenced-off
should be able to be measured
5
Al en + Clarke
Agricultural Emissions Pricing Consultation – The Ministry for the Environment and the Ministry for Primary Industries
• Shouldn’t indigenous biodiversity be rewarded more because of the other
values that come with it? If we get this right, we wil incentivise indigenous
• If govt is to use sequestration as part of the model, we need to rebuild
farmers’ confidence and communicate that we can measure it at a small
scale
• When asked if the anger about government’s proposal is because there’s a
separate process for sequestration, participants said it was, but also that the
sequestration rate in the government proposal is very dif erent from the one
in HWEN and they can’t both be right
• A system where sequestration is included in the calculator would be much
better. It’s too expensive to fence off at the current rates. (Wide agreement
in the room - “this is a submission times 7”)
• By having a decent sequestration rate bush wil be protected which is
unambiguously a good outcome. If the rate is good people wil protect their
indigenous. Participant thought it might be worth sacrificing accuracy in the
system to make sure these outcomes happen
• Shelterbelts are vulnerable, but when you add them all up they amount to a
lot, and while some are vulnerable they are unlikely to all be damaged at
once. The amount of carbon at risk on an individual scale is small, but the
amount sequestered on all the shelterbelts together is large
• Planting out an area wil reduce methane emissions because it wil force the
stocking rate down. However you need stock exclusions to establish
planting
Did attendees prefer
pricing nitrogen
at the farm level or at the processer
level? Why?
6
Al en + Clarke
Agricultural Emissions Pricing Consultation – The Ministry for the Environment and the Ministry for Primary Industries
Question:
New/thorny questions asked by
attendees
Answer:
[Duplicate this row as needed]
Future enhancements
Did attendees prefer a
tradeable
methane quota? What benefits did they
cite?
What concerns did attendees have
about
tradeable methane quotas?
What concerns did attendees share
about an
interim processer-level
levy?
What
alternatives to an interim
processer-level levy did attendees
share?
New/thorny questions asked by
Question:
attendees
[Duplicate this row as needed]
Answer:
7
Al en + Clarke
Agricultural Emissions Pricing Consultation – The Ministry for the Environment and the Ministry for Primary Industries
Impacts and support
• 47% reduction (i.e. 2050 methane target) would really hurt, but I can take
the hit of the initial levy
•
How did attendees believe the system
We need a system that works for everyone - dairy and beef are intertwined -
would
impact them?
if one suffers so does the other
• The document puts a lot of responsibility on individuals - participant saw this
What
support did attendees believe wil
as a ‘NZ Inc thing’. Look at it holistically. Incentivise farmers to do what they
be needed?
can.
•
• Government has overturned recommendations a participant thought were
What impact did attendees think the
good. Sheep and beef farms wil be worse off despite (in Northland) the
pricing scheme wil have on their
amount of sequestration & good practice embedded
communities?
• A participant noted that farmers are seeing and being punished by the
effects of climate change.
How can
rural communities be
• Participant noted that generally Northland has a lower stocking rate, is less
supported?
intensively farmed than other parts of the country
•
Did attendees share specific
impacts
• Māori land blocks = a secondary income on ancestral land, wil be hoping
for Māori?
not to be captured in the system
8
Al en + Clarke
Agricultural Emissions Pricing Consultation – The Ministry for the Environment and the Ministry for Primary Industries
How did attendees think the
Crown
should
protect relevant
iwi and Māori
interests?
Question: For us, breeding is one of our best options, but it’s slow and needs to
succeed before you can start getting rid of worse performing stock. If you don’t
New/thorny questions asked by
breed on your farm you need to rely on other farmers to do it right
attendees
[Duplicate this row as needed]
Answer:
Implementation, verification, compliance and enforcement
What feedback did attendees have on
• Participant considered it ‘drastically dif erent’ to what was proposed by
the proposed
governance structure?
HWEN - if it’s appointed from the top down (rather than industry led) that wil
What did attendees think should be
create significant uncertainty, particularly with governmental changes
included in the post-implementation
creating potential for 3-year cycles of appointments
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?
9
Al en + Clarke
Agricultural Emissions Pricing Consultation – The Ministry for the Environment and the Ministry for Primary Industries
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
Answer:
[Duplicate this row as needed]
Other/General
• Participant: The only way I can lower emissions is to grow less grass/take
pasture out of the system - there’s no technology I can use. Lowering stock
numbers won’t do anything if they’re spread over the same area.
• There have been significant reductions in the last 10 years - what else can
we do?
Did attendees have
any other
• Emphasised the importance of stream bed management
feedback on the proposals?
• Risk that dairy won’t pay & send their stock to finishing farms (?)
• Most farmers would rather be farming, and the people in this room know
more than 99% of farmers about the proposals. Most people’s options are
‘fight or flee’. There is a lot of misinformation out there, not just in the
farming community. The discussion document is too long - most farmers
won’t even open it. If it could be condensed in a way that farmers would pick
10
Al en + Clarke
Agricultural Emissions Pricing Consultation – The Ministry for the Environment and the Ministry for Primary Industries
it up they would be less afraid. Most don’t have the time or headspace to
digest all the changes.
• HWEN was important and its progress happened because farmers trusted
that they would do what they said. Government changes to the plan weren’t
sensible because they lost this trust.
• HWEN aimed to make the proposals as fair as possible for all involved and
this balance has been upset in the govt response. Govt have set
themselves apart from being a collaborator when initially they were a
partner.
• To an extent we are already starting to make changes because costs are
increasing. Less stock therefore less methane.
•
Comments on the engagement process:
• There is a lack of understanding of the farming community & a perception
that only animal farming is responsible for climate change.
• What is happening now with the govt response undermines groups like Beef
and Lamb
• As far as most are concerned, the govt communication on this issue has
already happened. Farmers don’t want to make submissions.
• People won’t engage without an understanding of how it’s going to affect
them. Groundswel have taken advantage of this by giving people an ‘easy
out’
• Farmers wil turn up to find out what they need to do, and wil talk amongst
themselves. But if it relies on specific people to get others to come, it’s a
pretty intensive model
11
Al en + Clarke
Agricultural Emissions Pricing Consultation – The Ministry for the Environment and the Ministry for Primary Industries
• Technology can be used effectively in big meetings - if people can type and
‘like’ questions, the best ones float to the top - this allows more efficiency in
getting to farmers
•
Out of scope comments:
• Concern that large non-farming companies are buying up farms and
planting them out instead of doing anything about their emissions -
described by participant as a ‘sledgehammer approach’
• Regenerating bush fenced off for 20 years - half a hectare and doesn’t
qualify for the ETS. Can’t prove it was in grass in 1990. The ETS is too
complicated and farmers don’t always get the credit
• Hard to reach farmers who aren’t engaging because government is the
other party, and they won’t do anything with our ideas if they don’t meet
their objectives.
• The effective economic cutoff for the ETS is much more than a hectare. If
you can put forest into the ETS it’s the best system, but some smaller areas
are eligible but not worth it.
• Where is the action from the rest of the country? Farming is more advanced
than others in coming up with a plan to become carbon neutral. Government
are not imposing concrete plans etc on other parts of the country.
•
New/thorny questions asked by
Question: Why can’t we have one farm plan that covers everything - one system
attendees
that covers SNAs, sequestration etc? Requiring multiple dif erent systems don’t
work - allow farmers to come up with their farm plans and don’t drive it from the top
[Duplicate this row as needed]
down
12
Al en + Clarke
Agricultural Emissions Pricing Consultation – The Ministry for the Environment and the Ministry for Primary Industries
Answer: The intention is to make the climate change module part of the wider farm
plan
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