Kerre Woodham: What will the new farm-to-forest changes mean for farmers?

It is customary when governments announce restrictions on farmers’ ability to do anything that there be howls of protest – but not with this one. The Government has announced sweeping changes to limit the amount of full farm to forestry conversions. And the reason that there's very little in the way of dissent is that farming groups and rural communities have been raising concerns over the amount of productive farmland being converted into forestry for several years now. You'll have seen many billboards, and we’ve discussed it before on the show.  

Minister of Agriculture and Forestry Todd McClay said the changes made delivered on a key election commitment to protect food production for farmers, while still providing ETS certainty for foresters. He told Mike Hosking this morning that while New Zealand absolutely needs to do its bit in terms of reducing harmful gases, we should not be leading the charge to the detriment of our economy.  

“We only need to focus on what New Zealand does. We don't need to lead the world, we don't need to do more than others, we don't need to be right out in the front. We need to focus on what our obligations are and so that's what the Government is likely to do. But the Climate Change Commission is also going to come out with their report very soon. We'll take these two bits of advice, we'll look at it, take some time to be sensible next year, and then cabinet will make a decision.  

“You know, there are two views out there. We should be right at the front of the queue, leading the world. That's harmful to New Zealand consumers and it's harmful to the economy. We are very small emitters compared to almost everybody else, but that's not a reason for us not to do our fair share. We should be leading the world in innovation, not in closing down businesses.” 

Absolutely. There are a number of concerns around turning farms into forests. One is that rural communities and economies are being changed due to the replacement of good quality farmland with pine plantations. So if you've got a working farm, you've generally got two or three or four families who are working that farm, their kids go to school, and they buy at the local shops, and it's a village. If you've got a forest there, you just let it grow. You plant it, you leave. There are no families there, so school rolls drop and businesses suffer.  

The second major concern was that the carbon forest would only be used to gain carbon credits and produce lumber, and then balancing those concerns with the property rights of farmers to choose what they wanted to use their land for.  Many, many, many, many farmers, the vast majority, only realise the work, the human investment, and the monetary investment they put into their farms when they sell them. They work every hour God sent and then, provided they live long enough, they sell the farm. Then they've got some good years, and their hard work has paid off. If they want to get the best possible price for their farm and somebody buys it, then they turn the farm into forestry, what's the farmer to do? And they can say I didn't know it was going to be forestry. They can say I did know it was going to be forestry, but I’ve got one shot at this.  

So that's what the Government was trying to do. Federated Farmers has welcomed the news. Forestry spokesman Toby Williams said it was great that the Government was taking steps to stop the relentless march of pine trees across productive farmland. But he said it was also important changes were made to the way New Zealand set international emissions targets. He said New Zealand's rural communities are bearing the brunt of misguided climate change targets, as over 200,000 hectares of productive sheep and beef land have been planted in carbon farming in the last five years alone.  

The Greens say it's not

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Carywood and Mornings podcast from News
Talks d B.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
It is customary when governments announce restrictions on farmers' ability
to do anything that there be howls of protest, but
not with this one. The government has announced sweeping changes
to limit the amount of full farm to forestry conversions,
and the reason that there's very little in the way
of descent is that farming groups and rural communities have

(00:33):
been raising concerns over the amount of productive farmland being
converted into forestry for several years now. You'll have seen
many billboards. We've discussed it before on the show. Minister
of Agriculture and Forestry Todd maclay said the changes made
delivered on a key election commitment to protect food production
for farmers while still providing ets certainty for foresters. He

(00:58):
told My Costing this morning that while New Zealand absolutely
needs to do its bit in terms of reducing harmful gases,
we should not be leading the charge to the detriment
of our economy.

Speaker 1 (01:08):
We only need to focus on what New Zealand does.
We don't need to lead the world. We don't need
to do more than others. We don't need to be
right out in the front. We need to focus on
what our obligations are and so that's what the government
is likely to do. But the Climate Change Commission is
also going to come out with their report very soon.
We'll take these two bits of advice, so we'll look
at it, take some time to be sensible next year

(01:29):
and then Cabinet will make a decision. You know, there
are two views out there. We should be right at
the front of the queue leading the world. That's harmful
to New Zealand consumers and it's harmful to you know,
the economy. We are very smaller matters compared to almost
everybody else, but that's not a reason for us not
to do our fair share. We should be leading the
world in innovation, not in closing down businesses.

Speaker 2 (01:51):
Absolutely so. There are a number of concerns around turning
farms into forests. One is that rural communities and economies
are being changed due to the replacement of good qualityland
with pine plantations. So if you've got a working farm,
you've generally got two or three or four families who

(02:12):
are working that farm, and their kids go to school,
and they buy at the local shops and you know
it's a village. If you've got a forest there, you
just let it grow, you plant it, you leave. There
are no families there, so school rolls drop and businesses suffer.
The second major concern was that the carbon forest would

(02:33):
only be used to gain carbon credits and produce a lumber,
and then balancing those concerns with the property rights of
farmers to choose what they wanted to use their land.
For many, many, many, many farmers, the vast majority only
realize the work, the human investment and the monetary investment

(02:54):
they put into their farms when they sell them. They
work every hour gods ent, and then provided they live
long enough, they sell the farm and then they've got
some good years and their hard work has paid off.
So if they want to get the best possible price
for their farm, and somebody buys it, somebody offers them

(03:19):
that price, then they turn the farm into forestry, and
it wants a farmer to do. They can say I
didn't know it was going to be forestry. They can
say I did know it was going to be forestry,
but I've got one shot at this. So that's what
the government was trying to do. Federated Farmers has welcomed

(03:41):
the news. Forestry spokesman Toby Williams said it was great
that the government was taking steps to stop the relentless
march of pine trees across productive farmland, but he said
it was also important changes were made to the way
New Zealand set international emissions targets. Said New Zealand's rural
communities are bearing the brunt of misguided climate change targets,

(04:05):
as over two hundred thousand hectares of productive sheep and
beef land have been planted in carbon farming in the
last five years alone. The Greens say it's not enough
that they're just tinkering around the edges, and that really
the needs to start at the production of the gases,
not trying to mitigate the gases, and it all needs

(04:29):
to be native forest anyway. But then nothing will ever
be enough for the Greens until we're roaming from sustainable
village to sustainable village by torchlight, because there will be
no powerpoles and we'll be wearing hemp loin colts and
I'll be trading my snapper for your cody pole and
that will be the end of that. Really, nothing will
ever really be enough. The farm to forestry changes involve

(04:50):
a lot of numbers which I'm not going to read
out because they'll just befuddle you. For example, an annual
registration cap of fifteen thousand hectares for exotic forestry registrations
on ALU sixty six farmland. So I'm not going to
read up with the changes are google them if you wish,
but changes there will be. I totally accept Todd McClay

(05:14):
saying we need to do our bit. We have to
do our bit, but we do not have to be
leading the charge. We don't have to be bigger, better than,
more morally robust than China or the US or all
of those countries where it absolutely matters. So there's that,
there's that part of it. We must do our bit.

(05:36):
We must be the most efficient in the cleanest possible way.
That's a great goal, but setting arbitrary targets that most
countries are failing to meet just seems pointless. I'd love
to hear from the farmers themselves, you've got one shot

(05:57):
when you sell the farm. Is this going to mean
you're not going to get the best possible price, or
that the price will be reduced somewhat because you're not
going to have the same competition when you had foresters
looking to put the farm into pine forest. And what's

(06:19):
going to mean for the rural communities too? Is this
an injection rejuvenation of rural communities that have slowly been dying.

Speaker 1 (06:31):
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