DairyNZ Farmers Forum with Sue Edmonds

There’s lots of reports being written of late, but seemingly little action on the problems they write about. 

The Productivity Commission produced more than 600 pages recently on ‘emissions reductions’, but unless we get a Climate Change Commission set up quick smart, and they put a bomb under government departments and councils, any recommendations being shown to work before 2030 will be amazing.

But they did come to the conclusion that short-lived gases such as methane should be treated separately in terms of measurement, counting and paying separately to carbon dioxide and probably nitrous oxide too. But how to achieve this seemed rather beyond them at present. In the meantime they want less cows, more trees, and most of our so-called ‘less productive’ land planted up ASAP.

Of course Beef+LambNZ, whose levy payers are doing quite well on lamb meat at present, immediately screamed they couldn’t be part of any Emissions Trading Scheme – and that they were already miles ahead on how many hectares of bush and trees they had. They just want mitigation of some sort, again.

Meanwhile, DairyNZ has had another bright idea to spend seven years and $21 million trying to breed cows that burp less methane.

And the two big fertiliser co-ops are celebrating their record profits this year, from all those chemicals they’ve got farmers spreading liberally around.

Does it never occur to the scientists, advisors, and chemical salespersons that the greenhouse gas and freshwater problems might have something to do with the pasture that all those animals are eating? Which is always liberally enriched with nitrates in the form of urea, in greater quantities every year, causing endless rumen problems, methane burps and nitrogenous urine.

Everyone thinks that ‘when we get the technology right’ all the problems will go away.  Somehow good old nature never gets a look in with that lot. Dairy is getting most of the blame these days, and I’ve even heard of some farmers changing back to drystock, both to avoid the bad press and make their lives simpler.

What annoys me most is planting trees of multiple sorts in huge areas is the fixated idea for sequestering carbon, to cope with the CO2 problem. We have enormous areas of New Zealand now in pasture, and at present all the carbon sequestered there is being aired or leached away. Why aren’t we focusing on sequestering it in our soils, where it could remain safely locked up forever? But this idea isn’t getting research time at present.

Our fixation on growing ‘fast grass’ means that plants aren’t being allowed to drop dead bits, our root systems are so shallow that hard grazing is keeping root masses small, and our soil isn’t being allowed to make humus from the mixture. And it is sequestered carbon which allows the creation of humus, while urea burns it up before it can occur. Without sufficient carbon we grow less pasture, and then rush round with the spreader to cover the shortfall, increasing the amount used every year.

Maybe all farmers should be issued with spades and instruction books on Visual Soil Assessment, and sent out to dig small square holes and look at what comes out of them. While we go on destroying, rather than assisting, nature’s soil life, no amount of ‘mitigations’ are going to reduce our gases or clean up our waters.