Passion and trees aren't going to solve climate change
Dr Jacqueline Rowarth, is an adjunct professor at Lincoln University, and is a director of Ravensdown, DairyNZ and Deer Industry NZ. OPINION: Cyclone Gabrielle knocked thousands of hectares of trees to the ground, and washed tonnes of soil out to sea. The carbon in the trees and soil is still out of the atmosphere, but it cant be included in any of the inventories for the IPCC or auditing schemes. And the organic matter that contains the carbon is already breaking down, allowing the previously captured carbon to return to the atmosphere. The destruction has made the foolishness of trying to reduce climate change through biology all too clear. Rod Carr, chair of the Climate Change Commission, and Simon Upton, Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, have also been clear about the inadequacies of such an approach. READ MORE: * Reducing greenhouse gases without reducing food production an important balance * How to keep feeding the world while fighting climate change * Farms can reduce animal numbers, but how much would you like to pay for food? At the New Zealand Agricultural Greenhouse Gas Research Centre (NZAGRC) conference at the end of February, Carr stated that regarding one tonne of carbon emitted from the geosphere as equivalent to one tonne of carbon sequestered in the biosphere is nonsense. He went on to suggest that offsets which are neither permanent nor enforceable are greenwashing. Cyclone Gabrielle has shown his words to be true. This leaves New Zealand and the world with the challenge of identifying what can be done that will make a difference. Passionate people have plenty of ideas, but their passion doesnt necessarily mean that the ideas are based on fact or will work. The recent Climate Strikes were associated with five demands: no new fossil fuel mining or exploration, a rebate for e-bikes for lower income housing, doubling marine reserves by 2025, funding a transition to regenerative farming, and lowering the voting age to 16. It isnt entirely obvious how some of the ideas might help, but there was no doubt that the promoters were passionate. In particular, regenerative farming has created a lot of interest. The government has invested over $57 million so far in exploring the approach for New Zealand farming (which does align with the proposal for a transition fund proposed by the climate strikers and Greenpeace). However, although greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions have decreased per hectare under regenerative farming in New Zealand, they have generally increased or stayed the same per kg of product (and the quantity of product has decreased per hectare). New Zealands customers, such as Nestle, McDonalds and Danone , want low emissions products. Coles in Australia has shown the way with its strategy of purchasing the lowest-emissions wheat first, then the next lowest and so on. Professor Rick Eckard, University of Melbourne, explained at the NZAGRC conference that this purchasing strategy put growers who can achieve high efficiencies optimising yields and inputs with fewest emissions in a very good position for achieving a good return. Those who cant, might decide to change their crop and/or their crop management. In New Zealand the approach of following the market and the efficiencies has been occurring for decades, and it has now been shown to have resulted in low emission products. Our processors are moving into a regime of rewarding lowest impact milk and meat. Silver Fern Farms already has its programme of Toitu Net Carbon Zero Certified- it as a world-leading programme that incentivises our farmers to invest in and maintain on-farm carbon sequestration including native and riparian planting. Fonterra is considering setting a target for carbon emissions that are not produced by the company itself, but those it's indirectly responsible for, up and down its value chain. These are termed scope 3 (on farm) emissions, and regenerative farming is being encouraged by customers such as Nestle . There is no doubt that regenerative approaches look and sound good, with sunflowers flowering, and the concept of regeneration and soil health and biodiversity. But New Zealand farmers have not degenerated their soils the soils havent been overgrazed for decades and havent been subject to monoculture cropping. Under pasture, and application of fertiliser to overcome limits to photosynthesis (such as superphosphate to enable clovers to grow and fix nitrogen), soil organic matter has increased, and soil organisms have flourished. New Zealand researchers from the crown research institutes and the universities have done the work and shown the results. Now results from regenerative studies are showing that what makes a positive difference overseas might make a negative one here. In any game plan, the starting point is important. Passionate people can make a difference, but the passion should be aimed in a direction that takes the country and the world forward. If food were a global resource, New Zealand would be the animal protein producer of choice. And forestry would not be allowed to advance across the land in an effort to gain carbon credits given in a misguided attempt to offset fossil fuel emissions. Subsidising e-bikes and cars cant achieve enough, not in New Zealand and not globally. The real requirement is rethinking lifestyles and activities to reduce fossil fuel use while farmers continue to be ever-more efficient. At the NZAGRC conference, agriculture minister Damien OConnor observed that, there are $1 trillion going into subsidies for fossil fuel extraction . The whole world should be protesting against that.