Farmer groups cast doubt on the wisdom of relying on mitigation technologies to cut agricultural emissions in their submissions for the government’s Second Emissions Reduction Plan 2026-2030.
Submissions on the plan, which outlines New Zealand’s climate strategy from 2026 to 2030, closed on August 25.
Federated Farmers said in its submission there is significant uncertainty around when the new technologies will come to market.
As such, agricultural emissions should not be priced until emissions targets reflect a “no further warming level”, farmers have access to cost-effective mitigation technologies, and it is established that emissions reductions do not cause emissions leakage.
DairyNZ, the Meat Industry Association (MIA) and Beef+Lamb NZ (BLNZ) in their submissions were more sceptical about mitigation technologies.
DairyNZ urged a cautious approach to making assumptions about technology availability, efficacy and uptake from 2026-2030.
“The projections for the second emissions reduction plan cannot be based on overly optimistic assumptions that have not been grounded in dairy farm systems analysis.
“Such assumptions must also consider the likely availability of the technology, the extent of regulatory hurdles that must be overcome, the practicality of implementing the technology in any given farm system, and what incentive structures are in place to support farmers,” it said.
The MIA and BLNZ, which wrote a joint submission, were more blunt, questioning assumptions that by 2030 major advances in methane reducing technology will be commercialised and implemented at scale.
“We consider this unlikely. As well as some of the technology being untested in New Zealand conditions, there is no discussion as to the costs of these technologies and the trade-offs that would have to be made in farming systems to adopt them.
“The adoption costs of introducing technologies are not zero or minor – we would strongly encourage that specific, funded pathways be developed for technology adoption at scale.”
The submission pointed to the assumption made that the uptake of low-methane sheep genetics of 10% of the national flock by 2030 will result in a reduction of 0.3 MtCO2-e in the second budget period.
“An uptake of even this magnitude requires significant funding and extension support. Expert external reports indicate that it would take up to 14 years to achieve ‘peak adoption’ covering 63% of the flock.”
The submission outlined the difficulties the sector has in accessing capital and said that the role of government cannot be underestimated. It could offer tax breaks or co-funding to adopt technology – to assist with initial capital costs that can be daunting.
Ring-fencing funds for the specific purpose of mitigation would assist with funding a technology adoption pathway, much like the Climate Emissions Reduction Fund, they said.
“While we are not calling for subsidies for low-emissions production, we would like to see consideration of an incentives approach for uptake that would lessen the risk borne by farmers in emissions management.”
Federated Farmers said the plan also misaligns with the government’s goal of doubling export earnings by 2050.
In order to double export revenue, it is likely that significant increases in agricultural production will be required. While this could be achieved by new government policies such as new technology and increasing water storage, each of these could also lead to increases in stock numbers and greenhouse gas emissions, it said.
However, none of this is considered in the base assumptions used in the draft plan.
Instead, it assumes agricultural emissions reduce 10% by 2030 because of projected downward trends in animal numbers, which Federated Farmers called “highly concerning”.
BLNZ and the MIA also said pricing agricultural emissions by 2030 was not an effective or efficient solution.
They said the sector has already reduced its methane emissions by more than 6.5% on 2017 levels as a result of the reduction in stock numbers driven by the conversion of sheep and beef farms into forestry in the past couple of years.
“If there were a further conversion of 120,000 hectares of sheep and beef farms into forestry between now and 2030, the sector would reduce its methane emissions by more than 10% on 2017 levels by 2030.”
