Emissions workshops ready to roll

FARMERS are being urged to register for an emissions pricing options roadshow being held at venues around the country in February.

The roadshow, which begins in New Plymouth and Palmerston North on February 1 and winds up in Napier and Gisborne on February 28, will provide farmers with an opportunity to find out more about the agriculture emissions pricing options that have been developed by the He Waka Eke Noa partnership.

As well as the 30 meetings scheduled around the country, there will also be four evening webinars for farmers who cannot make the meetings, or who do not have a vaccine passport required under the Government’s covid-19 protection framework to attend the events in person.

The roadshow is being run by Beef + Lamb New Zealand, DairyNZ and Federated Farmers and as well as providing information on the options – a farm-level levy, a processor-level hybrid levy or being drawn into the Emissions Trading Scheme – farmers will be able to ask questions about the options and provide feedback on them.

There will also be an online form available for farmers to fill in, whether they go to a meeting or log into one of the webinars.

Under the covid traffic light system, there is no limit on attendance numbers of fully vaccinated people at events held in parts of the country classified as orange, but the workshops have been scheduled in a way that should some regions move to red with the expected arrival of the Omicron variant and be required to cap numbers at events, there is the option for back-to-back meetings to be held if interest is high enough.

More detail on the options is available on the B+LNZ and DairyNZ websites, but further information will be made available at the end of January so farmers will have access to the most up-to-date information possible before the roadshow starts.

The He Waka Eke Noa partnership needs to report back to the Government by April on its preferred emissions pricing option.

By the end of 2022, the climate change and agriculture ministers must put forward a report outlining the system that will price agricultural emissions as an alternative to the ETS.

B+LNZ chief executive Sam McIvor says it is important the pastoral sector puts forward a viable alternative as if agriculture is included in the ETS farmers will lose the split-gas approach achieved in the Zero Carbon Act.

“B+LNZ acknowledges the options are not perfect, but we believe the alternatives have advantages over the ETS for sheep, beef and dairy farmers, allowing you to influence change and receive recognition for both on-farm reductions in emissions and for sequestration not eligible under the ETS,” McIvor said.

“The options are a starting point that will evolve as science, measurement and technology allow more accurate recognition of what’s happening on individual farms.”

One way or another, by January 2025, agricultural emissions in NZ will be priced.

Farmers can register for the workshops and webinars on the B+LNZ and DairyNZ websites.

A MANAAKI Whenua-Landcare Research scientist is cautioning that previously extreme weather events are rapidly becoming the “new normal”, compelling farmers to consider major changes in their farm systems.

Nick Cradock-Henry said farmers face the twin challenges of not only mitigating against future greenhouse gas emissions, but also dealing with the legacy impact that over a century’s worth of hydrocarbon consumption is inflicting upon today’s climate.

His concern comes as NIWA releases its annual climate report for 2021 that reveals the year as the warmest on record, exceeding 2016 for the highest average temperature at 13.6degC, almost a full degree Celsius above the 19812010 average.

The highest temperature was recorded in Ashburton at 39.4C on January 26, with Auckland, Bay of Plenty, Tasman and even Fiordland all reporting temperatures well above average.

No months in 2021 were below the 1981-2010 average.

“The primary sector has a long and successful history of adapting to inter-annular (between year) variations,” Cradock-Henry said.

“But as the climate continues to change those strategies of the past, including sourcing supplements from elsewhere and shifting stock off farms become more difficult to use as events happen more and more frequently.”

He said many contemporary farming systems are running close to their limits, in part due to financial pressures, with little capacity to cope with a sustained shift in conditions that stressed them over consecutive years.

However, he took confidence from noticing how the conversation with farmers about climate change has shifted in the past 15 years, when initial responses were sceptical at best.

“Now enough farmers have experienced enough strange weather to increase their sensitivity and understanding that it is happening. Most of the work we do now is to try to help farmers to adapt, with projects in Northland, Canterbury, Marlborough in place,” he said.

The major El Niño event of 1997-98 was quantified as slicing 0.7% of NZ’s GDP from March 1997 to September 1998, or about $600 million at the time.

The event prompted the Reserve Bank to research the climate event’s impact.

Its 2015 report determined El Niño sliced off 0.4% of GDP from every standard deviation from a “neutral” climate setting.

“Work already done has found that drought is now NZ’s most costly climate hazard, ahead of flooding now, and exacerbated by climate change,” he said.

Modelling has revealed the widespread drought of 2012-13 had been about 20% more likely to occur today than in the late 1800s.

There is also a swathe of academic work under way to better quantify the impact of climate change on the entire economy in the future due to its likely impacts upon the primary sector.

Cradock-Henry said he was hopeful New Zealanders would appreciate the tough challenges the primary sector has in dealing with climate change’s effects now, as well as mitigating against it.

“Even if we reduce our greenhouse gas release today, we will still experience 50 years of global warming due to the legacy of gases already released. The question is, how do we support the primary sector to transition with this challenge?”

THE mānuka honey sector is contemplating its appeal options this month after the late 2021 rejection of its trademark claim by the United Kingdom Intellectual Property Office.

The industry had applied to the office to secure sole New Zealand rights to use the phrase mānuka honey, a move that had been ardently opposed by Australian producers.

The UK decision fell in favour of the Australian producers, with a ruling that there was a “lack of definition” around what constituted mānuka honey and consumers had little understanding of what the health benefits were.

But the ruling has left industry leaders here angry and dismayed.

Unique Mānuka Factor Honey Association spokesperson John Rawcliffe said UK consumers had a very clear impression of what constituted NZ mānuka honey, based on flavour, smell and appearance.

“The term will now be transferred to other species from other countries leading to misunderstanding and confusion,” Rawcliffe said.

He said it would be misleading to consumers for honey producers outside of NZ to claim the name mānuka honey, when the plant the nectar came from did not grow in Aotearoa NZ.

NZ’s efforts to protect and trademark the mānuka honey type were given a boost in September 2019, when the appellation group was granted $5.7 million through the Provincial Growth Fund, including a $1.7m loan to help in its bid to secure international trademark rights.

At the time, then regional economic development minister Shane Jones accused Australian honey producers of attempting to steal what was indigenous to NZ.

But in the lengthy 40-page ruling, the UK adjudicators determined there was a lack of definition around what constituted mānuka honey and consumer knowledge of its benefits.

This is despite the Government here establishing honey standards for export as the only country in the world with a formal scientific definition for mānuka derived honey overseen by MPI.

The ruling leaned heavily upon a UK food standards report completed in 2016 that maintained there was a lack of consumer awareness that mānuka honey was exclusively a NZ product, a claim that has NZ officials fuming.

Apiculture NZ chief executive Karin Kos said the outcome was extremely disappointing, particularly given the positive prospects the UK market was providing for mānuka honey producers.

The mānuka honey export industry has been growing at a rapid rate, with export sales in 2020 totalling $440m, with the UK and China the top two markets, accounting for 40% of total sale volume.

Mānuka Charitable Trust chair Pita Tipene said the trust was considering its options on a decision that was out of step with existing indigenous IP frameworks.

“This ruling ignores the role of iwi as kaitiaki (guardians) and is insulting to Māori and our culture,” Tipene said.

The efforts to have the mānuka trademark protected in the UK were going to be extended to other trade partners, including the United States and China.

Jason Prior, owner of Down Under Honey in Manawatū, said the decision sets a precedent that will mean other countries, including Chile, Australia and Brazil, will start to market their product as mānuka honey, leveraging off the quality of the NZ mānuka type.

“And we have been picking up quite a bit of business from people who prefer NZ mānuka honey to Australian. We have had five to six customers come to us in the past six months wanting to buy NZ mānuka and swap out Australian,” Prior said.

“There is an awareness there that our quality is better, and taste is preferable. Maybe we are going to have to push the NZ angle with mānuka more.”

He said the decision ran in the face of other provenance-type foods such as Champagne and Parma ham that have enjoyed robust protection.

“To say that just because other producers have used the description who are not from the region or country for some time is a defence for them to keep using it is hardly a reason,” he said.

“The use of the term Champagne in regions other than Champagne was successfully banned well after other countries had adopted it.”

Australian Mānuka Honey Association chair Paul Callander hailed the ruling as “right and fair”.

“The Australian industry has fought hard to protect its rightful interests in this growing market and will continue to do so. This decision is an important one that we hope will be followed by other jurisdictions where trademark certification has been sought,” Callander said.