25 July 2024
By Wayne McNee, Chief Executive of AgriZeroNZ. This opinion piece was first published in the NZ Herald.
It’s fair to say there’s a lot of noise swirling around New Zealand agriculture right now, particularly on reducing methane and nitrous oxide emissions.
On one hand, our sector is rightly celebrated for being amongst the most emissions-efficient in the world, with highly productive animals predominantly living outside, grazing in paddocks, and with highly skilled farmers always looking for ways to find solutions and innovate.
On the other hand, farmers are also being told the sector needs to act quickly to further reduce emissions.
These are both true: we are highly efficient at farming, but we still need to act – because change is happening and fast.
Farmers abroad now have access to tools to help them cut greenhouse gases, most of which don’t work on our pasture-based farms, and because of this, some farmers and processors in California, Ireland, Denmark and the Netherlands argue they’re already more efficient than us.
This puts us at risk of being overtaken by our competitors in supplying global companies, our discerning international customers.
These companies, like Danone, Mars, Tesco and Sainsbury’s (and many others), have all set ambitious, global, science-based targets for emissions reduction through their supply chains and are looking to source their products from lower emissions farms.
McDonald’s, for example, is working with the New Zealand beef sector to help accelerate its positive change on climate.
Simon Kenny, Head of Impact and Communications for McDonald’s New Zealand says that New Zealand is a top ten beef export market for Macca’s, making us strategically important in achieving global goals. With McDonald’s science-based targets for absolute reduction in beef farm emissions, Kenny noted a whole value-chain approach is needed to make New Zealand beef as sustainably sourced as possible.
Then there’s Nestlé, the world’s largest food and beverage company, which has been sourcing dairy from Kiwi farms for more than a century for a range of products including baby formula, Milo and KitKat. Dairy is its biggest source of scope 3 emissions, which are created through production supply chains.
Nestlé points to its science-based targets to cut emissions by 20 per cent by the end of next year and 50 per cent by 2030. Margaret Stuart, Nestlé Oceania’s Director of Sustainability says the company has to do what it can to minimise the impact of climate change and make sure vital ingredients are available in the future.
Our dairy, meat and wool sectors are expected to provide $35.6 billion in export trade revenue this year, not to mention employing tens of thousands of people. We send 95 per cent of the milk produced here overseas, to over 130 countries worldwide, as well as around 90 per cent of beef and 95 per cent of lamb.
Farmers are the backbone of our economy and the significance of our exports means we’re more affected by global trade winds than farmers overseas who produce solely for a domestic market.
Global market access is crucial to our sector’s profitability. International trade agreements increasingly use enforceable emissions and sustainability targets, and governments want to understand the emissions of the food that’s coming through their borders.
At the recent Primary Industries Summit in Wellington, Vangelis Vitalis, New Zealand’s chief trade negotiator, said the vast majority of questions he gets from our trading partners are about the environment, animal welfare and climate.
They’re watching closely and Vangelis said “AgriZeroNZ’s work is critical” to maintain such deals and win new ones, both of which protect our country’s economic future.
AgriZeroNZ was set up by the New Zealand government and major agribusinesses to ensure our farmers get the solutions they need to cut emissions and maintain their global competitiveness.
Our power is in our collective, with widespread industry support including a growing list of shareholders (from dairy co-ops, fertiliser companies to meat processors and banks) as well as other primary sector players and government.
We’re scanning the world for solutions, with $191 million to invest in companies, local and offshore, which are developing tools that will work in a pastoral farming system and making commitments to bring their products to New Zealand.
And there’s plenty in development – with new pastures, genetics, probiotics, and inhibitors some of which can be delivered via a bolus that sits in the animal’s stomach, or rumen. There’s also pioneering research into methane vaccines. They’re all aiming to decrease methane production, some by up to 80 per cent.
So far, we’ve invested $29 million in a range of potential tools for farmers. We’re taking calculated risks and significantly scaling-up efforts made to date, because as a collective, we know farmers can’t do this transition alone.
I speak to a lot of farmers in my role and many are keen to be early adopters of the tools. They want to see how they work and share that knowledge. Others ask me, ‘what difference can I make?’. The answer is a lot. Methane is a short-lived but potent greenhouse gas and it’s everybody working together that will really turn the dial on our emissions profile.
Wayne McNee
We recognise there is a very real and disruptive risk to our agricultural sector from the need to reduce emissions. But there is also an opportunity to stay among the most efficient producers in the world if we can get the right tools to our farmers.
The coalition government is committed to investing in practical tools and technology to reduce agricultural emissions, in a way that won’t reduce production or export revenue. That is our ambition, too.
Our pasture-based farming system gave us a head start in the emissions reduction race. We can’t afford to lose that advantage.
We must show we’re making progress so we can maintain our global position and our compelling farming story.
We also need to make the system easier to allow new tools and tech to be used here and we’re collaborating with the Ministry for Primary Industries and Environmental Protection Authority on this, to support streamlining the regulatory framework. We’re also working closely with our strategic partner, the New Zealand Agricultural Greenhouse Gas Research Centre (NZAGRC).
It's an exciting time to be working in the sector and based on what we’ve seen around the world we’re optimistic farmers will have two or three tools to choose from by 2030 as part of an expanding toolbox to reduce emissions.
I firmly believe if we invest, innovate and work together, we can use the latest science to have the best of both worlds. We can keep farming animals in the paddocks, while utilising tools and tech to help us preserve – and hopefully even boost – our agricultural sector, our economy and way of life.
