No changes to agri-emissions pricing

A109 Light Utility Helicopter flight with mayor Gisborne City from the air in November 2023.

 Comment by Kate Acland, B+LNZ Board Chair 

There has been a lot of media speculation about a possible fertiliser tax and what this means for agricultural emissions pricing and the He Waka Eke Noa partnership, so I wanted to update you on this issue.

We are committed to playing our part on addressing emissions, and good progress has already been made by the agriculture sector on reducing our emissions.

However, we still fundamentally believe the current methane targets are too high and do not reflect the latest science when it comes to methane’s warming impact on the planet. We continue to work with other sector groups such as Federated Farmers on pushing for a review of the targets in 2024 based on the latest science and a warming approach.

In the meantime, the Government has not announced any changes to its intention to price agricultural emissions.

There has been no concrete proposal in relation to how it intends to do this, aside from indications of a potential tax of around $150 per tonne on urea.

B+LNZ’s preliminary analysis suggests this would have a significant impact on domestic food prices and farm profitablity, particularly on our mixed arable systems, and raise an unjustifiably large amount of money, which we could not support.

We are raising these concerns with the Government and will keep you updated on any further developments.

B+LNZ is still committed to a partnership approach in addressing agricultural emissions. However, we continually reassess whether this is right for our farmers and are currently fronting up to feedback sessions around the country to gain a deeper understanding of their concerns in relation to this.

We recognise the importance of continued investment in research and development from our sector in addressing agricultural emissions, but farmers need confidence in how this is going to be done and that it won’t affect the viability of our sector.

The issue of climate change is not going to go away and consumers and customers in our global markets are sending signals that they want to see action in this area.

We believe the first step in meeting these expectations is setting up a robust emissions reporting and measurement framework. No price should be imposed until issues like sequestration have been addressed and there are viable mitigations available.

We remain firm in our position that we will not agree to any outcome that disproportionately impacts sheep and beef farmers.