It seems climate accountability and action are beyond the understanding and ambitions of Fonterra, its sector, and their sheep and beef colleagues, writes Rod Oram
You know companies are serious about the climate crisis when they take responsibility for their emissions, commit to demanding goals to reduce them, and embark on bold strategies to achieve them.
When they act on the deep changes they have to make, they get help from other sectors, government and the rest of society. Then a nation has a credible and practical climate plan.
If companies deliver on their goals, the economy becomes much more sophisticated, resilient and valuable; and companies that helped lead the way earn their keep.
This is why the raft of company and industry submissions to the Climate Change Commission are so vital. If their submissions set us on the path to sustainability and prosperity, they will help the Commission deliver more robust and ambitious recommendations to the government on carbon budgets, pathways and policies.
In turn, the Government will respond to the strong and broad support for tackling the climate crisis. It will play fully its roles in setting goals, policies and regulation. It will give the vital political leadership we need to succeed.
Dairy, sheep and beef farmers are particularly crucial in all this. They are responsible for 42.3 percent of our emissions. If they don’t play their role, there’s absolutely no way the rest of us can meet our collective climate responsibilities as a nation, however hard we try.
Yes, we will, say Fonterra, DairyNZ, Beef+Lamb and Federated Farmers in their submissions. But then they immediately give every reason they can think of why they can’t, won’t, shouldn’t.
All four push back against the Commission’s proposal that they merely apply existing technologies and farming systems to make very modest reductions in their emissions in the 15 years ahead ahead or be slightly more ambitious later. One way or another they represent every single dairy, sheep and beef farmer in the country.
Their first argument is that their pastoral farming systems are already low emissions compared to those of their international competitors. But none of their submissions take stock of what those overseas farmers are up to. Apparently, they believe their very modest ambitions will keep them ahead and consumers on side.
Beef+Lamb explored this myopic view of the world in its extensive report on alternative proteins it published in 2018.
“The research concludes that a number of forces are coming together that are driving governments, investors and consumers to looks for alternatives to red meat. These include environmental concerns relating to climate change and the ability to feed the growing world population in a sustainable way; the use of animals in food production; and the place of meat in a modern diet.
“Despite these challenges, the research demonstrates there is still a strong future for the New Zealand red meat sector. The report reveals an untapped demand for naturally raised, grass-fed, hormone-free an antibiotic-free red meat with consumers prepared to pay a premium for such products,” Beef+Lamb concluded.
Yet, our future in farming and food production is neither so simple or limited. The climate crisis is driving massive transformation in those sectors worldwide. Contributing to that is more challenging than sticking with our status quo. But far more rewarding, as I described in this column and in a chapter on New Zealand agriculture which I’ve contributed to Climate Aotearoa: What’s happening and what we can do about it. This is a collection of essays edited by Helen Clark, which Allen & Unwin is publishing soon.
Their second argument is that their steady reductions in emissions over the past few decades – around 1 percent a year per kilogram of both meat and milk solids – might have hit its natural limits. This flies in the face of scientific evidence to the contrary such as in the report of the Biological Emissions Reference Group of which they were all members; or the practical experience of the likes of Synlait Milk which reduced its emissions per unit of production by 7 percent last year, or of Owl Farm, one of DairyNZ’s commercial monitor farms.
Federated Farmers’ submission pushes this “we can’t do more” line to a patently false and absurd conclusion:
“Therefore, at the present time, and for the short-to-medium term, the legislated gross methane emissions reductions can only be achieved by feeding proportionally less forage to ruminant livestock (cattle, sheep, and deer) with equal, if not greater, reductions in livestock production. There remains a constant of about 22 grams of methane for every one kilogram of dry matter consumed by a cow, sheep, goat or deer.”
The third argument is the government should launch a big research and development programme to give them the science and tools they need to reduce their emissions. But all four submissions have nothing to say about what the programme should focus on. Fonterra’s submission is the worst. It gives less than a page of its 28-page submission to science and R&D, and even then manages only a few platitudes such as:
“We welcome the development of a long-term plan for research and development, as outlined by the Commission, and believe a collaborative partnership between Government and industry will be key to creating new innovations to help farmers meet the emissions budgets. These partnerships may require new and innovative funding models, and we see the need for increased Government investment to support research and development.”
And: “Fonterra is very mindful that successful methane mitigation solutions need to be cost-effective and easily adopted by farmers.”
Given Fonterra has yet to set itself a methane reduction target or strategy, it’s no surprise it apparently has no idea what science it wants taxpayers to help fund. Yet the co-op devotes almost half of its 28-page submission to its plans to reduce its fossil fuel emissions, even though they are only 10 percent of its total emissions. This subject also dominated its press release on its advice to the Commission. It was silent on animal emissions.
The submissions of Fed Farmers, DairyNZ and Beef+Lamb are equally devoid of insight and input on the science they need.
The fourth argument of this quartet of laggards is about the Commission’s modelling on emission reductions from existing technologies, land use changes and the resulting economic impact. DairyNZ jumps in boots and all, building a “large-scale economic model of the New Zealand dairy sector,” and using data from 11,590 individual farms to assess the impact on them over the period 2017-2035. It concludes the economic cost to the sector is higher than the Commission's modelling result.
This defensive response of “my model is more valid than your model” is typical of vested interests, as I examined in this column. The status quo suits them fine. Worse, they have neither the insight nor ambition to argue for first order issues – such as how they will take responsibility for their emissions – that would drive their transformational change.
The fifth argument of these dairy and meat industry leaders is that their farmers should benefit economically from their farms’ carbon sequestration in riparian plantings, forest plantations and other biological activity.
Of course they should. But those are very complex measurement and reward systems to set up. Moreover, they don’t sequester methane emissions from cows, sheep and cattle, which is by far the biggest climate problem on farm. So to earn the right to those biological credits, farmers need to reduce their animal emissions.
Their sixth argument is that they really are committed to change because they are working in He Waka Eka Noa, the grandly named “Primary Sector Climate Action Partnership” between them and the government. But its goal is only to work out ways to measure, manage, reduce and price emissions down at a farm level.
That’s fine. But that’s only a tool, albeit a complicated and necessary one. It will be next-to-useless without emission reduction goals, policies and programmes to incentivise and help farmers make big, beneficial changes to their practices to reduce their emissions. This is particularly true because the price on their emissions will be very small and / or eased by abundant free carbon credits.
You don’t need a model to tell you what a mockery that makes of Fonterra’s claim to “world-leading dairy farming.”
Fonterra touts as progress its goals that by last October all its farmers had a farm-specific report on their biological greenhouse gas emissions, by mid this year more than half will have a Farm Environment Plan, and by 2025 they all will.
“We have expanded our team of Sustainable Dairy Advisors to 40 staff to ensure we meet our 100% Farm Environment Plan target. This will assist our farmers in their commitments for freshwater and climate as well as allow us to consolidate our programmes into full integrated farm planning in the coming years.”
Its 10,000 farmers are responsible for 20 percent of New Zealand’s greenhouse gas emissions. Yet they will have only 40 Sustainable Dairy Advisors to help them solve their climate crisis? Yep, one person for every 250 farmers.
You don’t need a model to tell you what a mockery that makes of Fonterra’s claim to “world-leading dairy farming.”
“We are deeply cognisant that our business produces 20 percent of New Zealand’s greenhouse gas emissions. 90 percent of those emissions come from our farmers’ businesses,” Fonterra says in the third paragraph of its submission to the Commission.
But cognisant only means aware.
It seems climate accountability and action are beyond the understanding and ambitions of Fonterra, its sector, and their sheep and beef colleagues.
