Mike's Minute: Our farming land is our calling card

An interesting, but good, move on forestry and farming. 

It is another example of practical thinking and application in an area that relied, to be frank, on laziness to solve a problem. 

Ever since we became obsessed with climate change and we became obsessed with things that might or might address climate change, the low hanging fruit has been trees and carbon markets. 

Carbon markets, as we have seen yet again this year, don't work. The government has mucked with the rules, changed the prices, freaked the market out, and all the credits that go up for sale by and large don’t get sold. 

They all pile into the next auction and don’t get sold until they get to the fourth auction of the year where, after they aren't sold again, they then get dumped. 

Dumped as in they never actually existed in the first place. It’s a mad, invented idea that only works if people believe it works. 

So far they don’t. 

Then we plant trees. Why? Because it's easy. 

So a paddock of trees - or a paddock of sheep, or crops, or cows. 

In a country where we already build too many houses on productive land, planting trees on that sort of land is criminal and stupid. 

What this country does is feed the world. Our ability on quality in many areas is unmatched, and we get the price return for it. 

But, and here is where the old freedom of movement thing comes in, if you have 100 hectares and you want to sell it and the person who wants to plant trees is offering more than the bloke next door who wants to expand his farm and keep sheep, you are now potentially limited by a government that has decided for you what you do with your property. 

That’s always a tricky area. 

Ultimately though governments must act in these circumstances on behalf of the nation and if we weren't so reliant on food production, if we were a tech centre, or a space centre, or an oil centre of a strategic global base like Singapore or Dubai, it might be different. 

But land is our calling card and one day we will work out trees aren't the answer to climate change. 

But by the time we work that out re-converting wont be possible, so in that sense this decision has saved us from ourselves. 

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