Claims that New Zealand farmers lead the world should be used to leverage research and add value, says Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, Simon Upton.
He said the country cannot and should not ignore the biological economy but he told the recent Environmental Defence Society conference that, in a climatically disrupted world with fraying ecosystems, reducing the environmental impact and transforming the way we produce food would be a winner for the country and the industry.
But so much of our current thinking and planning is short term.
In his recently released Going with the Grain report, Upton calculated the government spends almost $700 million a year helping primary industries, of which about half are subsidies to reduce environmental impacts.
Comparatively little is being spent transforming farm systems.
It is a similar story with research.
“Instead of playing a long game, we seem to have short attention spans and fail to capitalise on real progress when it is made.”
After 10 years, the National Science Challenge on the environmental impacts of farming, Our Land and Water, is about to end without any follow-through.
“The only related investment I’m aware of in something potentially transformative is the $400m allocated to the search for technologies that can reduce methane emissions from the livestock industry,” he said.
Government policy has picked the primary sector as a winner, and Upton said he does not have a problem with that provided its investment does not perpetuate the status quo.
“NZ could be leading the world on monitoring and modelling the environmental impact of land use, by applying our intellect to how we might do things differently on the land.
“But without a long-term commitment to bring research, business and finance together with this specific priority in mind, we won’t build the critical mass needed to change the game.”
Upton said the value of the environment needs to be recognised and not drowned out by traditional measures of economic value.
“To do that, environmental value and economic value need to be brought onto the same playing field.”
In his report Upton suggested increasing payments to landowners for ecosystem services such as biodiversity credits.
“The big question is where the money should come from. The logical answer is by increasing levels of environmental taxation over time.”
