February 25, 2025 • 6 mins
Outspoken North Otago farmer and environmentalist follows up on Dr Vaughan Holder's interview where we asked if methane was a "victim or villain". And are farmers being dealt a dud hand when it comes to measuring emissions? She also comments on interest rates, farmer confidence, on-farm conditions, and running her first marathon.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
She's an North Otago farmer taking time out of a
very busy day to yarn to us. Jane. I don't
know whether you caught up with doctor Vaughan Holder on
yesterday's show, but this is what he had to say
about the split gas approach to greenhouse scarce emissions, i e.
Methane versus CO two.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
And these two gases behave very very differently in the atmosphere.
Carbon dioxide accumulates. In fact, when you drive your car
to work today, you put out a certain amount of
CO two. When you drive tomorrow you double that. Right
if your car was putting out methane. If you drive
the same distance every day and you excrete the same
(00:40):
amount of methane every day, the amount of warming stay
the same over time. What that means is if we
have stable herds of capital and sheep, we actually end
up not having an increase in warming over time.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
So there you go. That's what he had to say
yesterday as the poster girl for the methane science called
Is that the name of it? Jane? What do you
have to say?
Speaker 3 (01:03):
Music to my ears, Jamie, enlightening and great to hear
some sense and sensibility from doctor holder, and whether you
look at it as a livestock seat as a whole,
or extrapolate it down to farm level. The two questions
that are all of our agg leaders and our politicians
have consistently failed to ask. These are our New Zealand
(01:23):
livestock meth and emissions increasing. The answer is no. And
then the second one is with these methane emissions, are
they stable and therefore or decreasing and therefore are they
adding to warming? Answer also no. And so both of
these meats the definition of net zero. Jamie, job done.
And that's again why it was really really great to
(01:45):
hear that, And you know, a great analogy there by
doctor Holders.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
I think, yeah, Well, and the interesting thing is, or
perhaps the obvious thing is perhaps agriculture ruminants are adding
to a cooling effect.
Speaker 3 (01:59):
Absolutely, Jamie. I've said that at a couple of speeches
that I've done, and you know, I've sort of been
ridiculed for that over the last four to five years.
And the reality is that the climate change eterea is
inversely related to economic growth. So you know, let's actually
get our facts right on this and draw a line
under the whole methane mitigation mesical, you know, money wasting,
(02:22):
and turn off the tap and start focusing on the
real problems in New Zealand, of which we have many.
And it was interesting to hear Christopher Luxe, and I
think it was yesterday, say we need to make the
tough choices and the trade offs. So here it is.
Here are the facts and black and white. And you
know twenty four billion dollars that they've potentially signed us
(02:43):
up for with their net zero and their new targets.
Twenty four billion dollars, Christopher Luxe, and you could buy
a new defense force and ten new hospitals for that,
or do what you've signed us up to do and
get a gold star on your sticker chart when you
go to the next climate change conference, Jamie. It was
disappointing to hear Grant McCallum with his insipid line yesterday
(03:04):
saying how poor do we want our country to be? Well,
that is exactly the question that we've been asking. So
to hide behind that sort of that byline of trade deals,
there's actually not one single trade deal that states that
we need to stay in the Paris Agreement, Jamie, So
please stop hiding behind at news Helen and actually just
take our own stance. We just be proud of our
free range produce and let's just be really upfront and
(03:28):
honest in terms of the part that we need to
play for the world is just being a leader in
that area, Jamie.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
A Pearl, Grant McCallum. Everyone's getting into them interest rates.
What are you going to say about that?
Speaker 3 (03:39):
It's interesting, So just thinking last night would have Benjamin
Franklin say, if you want to know the value of money,
go and borrow some. And it's an interesting fact that
you just see our bank actually increased our interest rates
just before the o CR announcement, and I was intrigued
to see see that happen. And I'm yet to see
them go down, but you know, they certainly are hitting
in the right direction and that's going to actually pump
(04:02):
a lot more money into into actually useful things in
terms of spectrum back economic growth, back into our communities. Jamie,
And I guess I was away at Cynical when I
saw the Farmer confidence too they come out. I guess
that was taken at the time when stud Farmers and
Luxton were walking hands on hand on stage and the
Civil Union on their tour but and there's been a
(04:24):
few roadblocks since then, including the misguided emissions target announcements.
But you know, I guess one thing, Jamie, and I
was just thinking back eighteen months ago. I said that
we had lost and there was hope and there was
just a lack of hope in our royal communities, and
that obviously extrapolates out throughout the whole entire country. And
I feel like we are back on having some hope,
(04:47):
and I think that's really great. So there is some
positivity out there, and let's encapsulate there and actually work
on the right things, Jamie, and not waste no more
time on this methaan folly.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
So you're getting into the nets today, mcnational and Luxome. Hey,
how are things on your North Otago farm. I'm looking
at my knee work drought index map and you're there's
no yellow where you are. You must be doing okay.
Speaker 3 (05:10):
Yeah, Jamie. We've we've been very fortunate actually over that
Christmas obviously new period, right through January and right into February,
we seem to have gathered about I think it's about
af you or ninety up to probably one hundred miles
of rain now, which is again unusual. We're not in
that sort of norwisterly pattern that we usually have, and
there's there's a lot of feed about in stock are
(05:31):
looking goods, So all boats well for a really good autumn,
because it's autumn of really is our pivot point. Like
most East Coast or areas that do get dried, it's
the autumn that can really sort of make or break
as Jamie. So no, things are very positive in net regard.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
Well, you're farming on the East coast, you're heading west
this weekend to run the Motor Tarpu Marathon. That's a
lot of running up Perl if you don't mind me
saying so, Jane.
Speaker 3 (05:54):
It's not a deal for twenty of half marathon's Jamie.
I've never done a full one, so you think I
would be wise enough not to a mountain run on
my first one. But I figure it can't be any
worse than childbirth or six years of a labor Greens government, Jamie.
So I think I'll just I'll just survive through it, Jamie.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
Well, they tell me, and I've done three, but might
have all been on the roads, and I think that's
a bit easy. You got to run up to the
top of the hill. But the hard part apparently is
running down into Arrowtown the downhill. But it's quite it's
quite tough on the old knees. I hope your knees
are good me.
Speaker 3 (06:24):
He's a good Jamie. Not sure about the rest of
my physique, but again I think I'm hopefully mentally, I'll
get there. I think the last twenty odd ks might
be the tusst, but looking forward to it. Jamie. Always
up for a challenge.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
Good on you, Jane Smith. Thank you very much for
your time. Good Luck on Saturday or is it Sunday?
Speaker 3 (06:41):
Saturday? And yes, I'll need it. Thank you, Jamie.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
Good luck on Sunday for the recovery. See you later, yes,
She's an North Otago farmer taking time out of a
very busy day to yarn to us. Jane. I don't
know whether you caught up with doctor Vaughan Holder on
yesterday's show, but this is what he had to say
about the split gas approach to greenhouse scarce emissions, i e.
Methane versus CO two.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
And these two gases behave very very differently in the atmosphere.
Carbon dioxide accumulates. In fact, when you drive your car
to work today, you put out a certain amount of
CO two. When you drive tomorrow you double that. Right
if your car was putting out methane. If you drive
the same distance every day and you excrete the same
(00:40):
amount of methane every day, the amount of warming stay
the same over time. What that means is if we
have stable herds of capital and sheep, we actually end
up not having an increase in warming over time.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
So there you go. That's what he had to say
yesterday as the poster girl for the methane science called
Is that the name of it? Jane? What do you
have to say?
Speaker 3 (01:03):
Music to my ears, Jamie, enlightening and great to hear
some sense and sensibility from doctor holder, and whether you
look at it as a livestock seat as a whole,
or extrapolate it down to farm level. The two questions
that are all of our agg leaders and our politicians
have consistently failed to ask. These are our New Zealand
(01:23):
livestock meth and emissions increasing. The answer is no. And
then the second one is with these methane emissions, are
they stable and therefore or decreasing and therefore are they
adding to warming? Answer also no. And so both of
these meats the definition of net zero. Jamie, job done.
And that's again why it was really really great to
(01:45):
hear that, And you know, a great analogy there by
doctor Holders.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
I think, yeah, Well, and the interesting thing is, or
perhaps the obvious thing is perhaps agriculture ruminants are adding
to a cooling effect.
Speaker 3 (01:59):
Absolutely, Jamie. I've said that at a couple of speeches
that I've done, and you know, I've sort of been
ridiculed for that over the last four to five years.
And the reality is that the climate change eterea is
inversely related to economic growth. So you know, let's actually
get our facts right on this and draw a line
under the whole methane mitigation mesical, you know, money wasting,
(02:22):
and turn off the tap and start focusing on the
real problems in New Zealand, of which we have many.
And it was interesting to hear Christopher Luxe, and I
think it was yesterday, say we need to make the
tough choices and the trade offs. So here it is.
Here are the facts and black and white. And you
know twenty four billion dollars that they've potentially signed us
(02:43):
up for with their net zero and their new targets.
Twenty four billion dollars, Christopher Luxe, and you could buy
a new defense force and ten new hospitals for that,
or do what you've signed us up to do and
get a gold star on your sticker chart when you
go to the next climate change conference, Jamie. It was
disappointing to hear Grant McCallum with his insipid line yesterday
(03:04):
saying how poor do we want our country to be? Well,
that is exactly the question that we've been asking. So
to hide behind that sort of that byline of trade deals,
there's actually not one single trade deal that states that
we need to stay in the Paris Agreement, Jamie, So
please stop hiding behind at news Helen and actually just
take our own stance. We just be proud of our
free range produce and let's just be really upfront and
(03:28):
honest in terms of the part that we need to
play for the world is just being a leader in
that area, Jamie.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
A Pearl, Grant McCallum. Everyone's getting into them interest rates.
What are you going to say about that?
Speaker 3 (03:39):
It's interesting, So just thinking last night would have Benjamin
Franklin say, if you want to know the value of money,
go and borrow some. And it's an interesting fact that
you just see our bank actually increased our interest rates
just before the o CR announcement, and I was intrigued
to see see that happen. And I'm yet to see
them go down, but you know, they certainly are hitting
in the right direction and that's going to actually pump
(04:02):
a lot more money into into actually useful things in
terms of spectrum back economic growth, back into our communities. Jamie,
And I guess I was away at Cynical when I
saw the Farmer confidence too they come out. I guess
that was taken at the time when stud Farmers and
Luxton were walking hands on hand on stage and the
Civil Union on their tour but and there's been a
(04:24):
few roadblocks since then, including the misguided emissions target announcements.
But you know, I guess one thing, Jamie, and I
was just thinking back eighteen months ago. I said that
we had lost and there was hope and there was
just a lack of hope in our royal communities, and
that obviously extrapolates out throughout the whole entire country. And
I feel like we are back on having some hope,
(04:47):
and I think that's really great. So there is some
positivity out there, and let's encapsulate there and actually work
on the right things, Jamie, and not waste no more
time on this methaan folly.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
So you're getting into the nets today, mcnational and Luxome. Hey,
how are things on your North Otago farm. I'm looking
at my knee work drought index map and you're there's
no yellow where you are. You must be doing okay.
Speaker 3 (05:10):
Yeah, Jamie. We've we've been very fortunate actually over that
Christmas obviously new period, right through January and right into February,
we seem to have gathered about I think it's about
af you or ninety up to probably one hundred miles
of rain now, which is again unusual. We're not in
that sort of norwisterly pattern that we usually have, and
there's there's a lot of feed about in stock are
(05:31):
looking goods, So all boats well for a really good autumn,
because it's autumn of really is our pivot point. Like
most East Coast or areas that do get dried, it's
the autumn that can really sort of make or break
as Jamie. So no, things are very positive in net regard.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
Well, you're farming on the East coast, you're heading west
this weekend to run the Motor Tarpu Marathon. That's a
lot of running up Perl if you don't mind me
saying so, Jane.
Speaker 3 (05:54):
It's not a deal for twenty of half marathon's Jamie.
I've never done a full one, so you think I
would be wise enough not to a mountain run on
my first one. But I figure it can't be any
worse than childbirth or six years of a labor Greens government, Jamie.
So I think I'll just I'll just survive through it, Jamie.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
Well, they tell me, and I've done three, but might
have all been on the roads, and I think that's
a bit easy. You got to run up to the
top of the hill. But the hard part apparently is
running down into Arrowtown the downhill. But it's quite it's
quite tough on the old knees. I hope your knees
are good me.
Speaker 3 (06:24):
He's a good Jamie. Not sure about the rest of
my physique, but again I think I'm hopefully mentally, I'll
get there. I think the last twenty odd ks might
be the tusst, but looking forward to it. Jamie. Always
up for a challenge.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
Good on you, Jane Smith. Thank you very much for
your time. Good Luck on Saturday or is it Sunday?
Speaker 3 (06:41):
Saturday? And yes, I'll need it. Thank you, Jamie.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
Good luck on Sunday for the recovery. See you later, yes,
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