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 enough, that they're just tinkering around the edges and that it really needs to start at the production of the gases, not trying to mitigate the gases. And it all needs 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 torch light, because there will be no power poles, and we'll be wearing hemp loin cloths, and I'll be trading my snapper for your kauri pole, and that will be the end of that. Nothing will ever really be enough.  

The farm-to-forestry changes involve a lot of numbers. For example, an annual registration cap of 15,000 hectares for exotic forestry registrations on LUC 6 farmland. I'm not going to list out what the changes are, Google them if you wish, but changes there will be. I totally accept Todd McClay 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, or more morally robust than China or the US, or all of those countries where it absolutely matters. So there's that part of it. We must do our bit. 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 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 it going to mean for the rural communities too? Is this an injection, a rejuvenation of rural communities that have slowly been dying?   

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