Agricultural Emissions Teaching Materials Released

Last month, we released a brand new short film on agricultural emissions. Today, we are pleased to announce the release of a set of free teaching materials to accompany the film. These consist of an editable presentation, complete with speaking notes, and further information on some of the figures that the presentation contains.

Our intention is that a wide range of people – including teachers, lecturers, farmers or people working with farmers – will be able to use the film and presentation to lead a discussion on what we can do about agricultural emissions. Potential audiences include secondary and tertiary students, as well as consumers and farmers. In other words, anyone who eats!

The materials can be downloaded by following the links below. In addition, we have just released the film in physical copy. If you would like to be posted a free DVD which includes the film and materials, please send your name and address to info@motu.org.nz.

We will be happy to support those who wish to use the film and materials by answering specific questions. We'll collate the questions and answers into an FAQ document which will be available soon on the blog and also on the Motu website. If you have any questions at all, please email them through.

The New Zealand Farming Story presentation (.pdf version)
The New Zealand Farming Story presentation (editable Powerpoint)
The New Zealand Farming Story speaking notes
Notes on figures for emissions from meat consumption in presentation

"Origin Green" - certifying the sustainability of Irish primary products

Rural News recently ran this article about a quality assurance scheme initiated by Bord Bai (the Irish Food Board). Called "Origin Green", the scheme guarantees the sustainability of certified foods to consumers. As the article explains, Beef and Lamb New Zealand Chair Mike Petersen thinks that there is scope for New Zealand to do something similar.

The Irish scheme is very similar to an idea developed within New Zealand by the Agricultural Emissions Dialogue and a version of it is already being developed by one of the members, Mike Barton, through his Taupo Beef programme. Mike discusses Taupo Beef in our short film.

More information on Origin Green is available here.

 

The New Zealand Farming Story: Tackling Agricultural Emissions

Today we are very excited to release our new short film on New Zealand’s agricultural emissions. Although the topic may sound dry (though hopefully not too dry if you visit this blog!) our filmmaker Jess Feast has done an excellent job of making an engaging film on an extremely important topic for the future of our country, our planet, our people and our stomachs. (She also made our films about improving the water quality in Lake Rotorua).

The film covers a wide range of topics, and many of the ideas in it come directly from what we learnt through the AgDialogue process. Importantly, we cover how we might be able to achieve some real reductions in New Zealand’s agricultural GHGs (greenhouse gases). You will get to meet some of the participants and experts from AgDialogue, including two of our star farmers, Mike and Megan.

The film speaks for itself, so you are better off watching it than reading about it. But before you do that, I’d just like to acknowledge all the hard work that went into making the film. To all those in the AgDialogue who gave their time and those who have done related research in the past few years, this film is dedicated to you and the hard work you have done.  Also thank you to our filmmaker Jess and the Ministry for Primary Industries for its support. The work will pay off in creating a more sustainable and prosperous future for us and future generations.

Oh, and if you like the film, please share it far and wide. New Zealand is uniquely placed to be able to make a big difference to levels of agricultural GHGs (greenhouse gases) around the world. And everyone in this country can make a difference.

UPDATE: Teaching materials to accompany the film have now also been released. These can be found here.

Looking forward: what NZ rural land might look like in the coming decades under a carbon price

This blog post is by Motu Research Analyst Zack Dorner.

A couple of years ago, my sister brought her partner to visit New Zealand for the first time. We picked them up in Auckland, and drove down the North Island back to Wellington. He asked “Why are there so many golf courses here?”

Of course, they weren’t golf courses, but the lush, green grassy farmland that New Zealand is so well known for, and that he was not used to.

Motu has just released a new working paper, modelling what our rural land might look like in the coming decades, including with a price on agricultural GHGs (greenhouse gases). Luckily, for our “golf courses”, even with the agricultural sector facing a price on its GHGs, New Zealand probably won’t look much different to the way it does now.

The really cool thing about the model used is that it is based on real world observations of how rural land use in New Zealand has changed in recent decades in response to commodity prices. It is slow to adjust – farmers don’t want to switch immediately to the new best thing for their land (see final graph below), which is understandable. Changing your whole farm can’t be easy or cheap to do, and who’s to say market conditions won’t change again.

Of course, the results in the working paper are just from a model. They do not predict the future, but give us an idea about the types of changes to land use and their magnitude under certain scenarios. There are on-farm mitigation options that farmers may be able to do to reduce their GHGs before changing land use, but to keep things simple, the model does not include these.

The working paper models three scenarios out to 2030: no carbon price, a carbon price ($25) just for forestry, and a greenhouse gas price for forestry and agricultural emissions.

The model shows several interesting things.

First, as I have said, land use change is quite slow. Even with a $25 carbon price on forestry and agriculture, there is actually relatively minimal changes in land use. This provides evidence that our agricultural sector may be able to respond efficiently to a price on carbon without huge disruption to rural life in New Zealand.

However, although changes to land use are gradual and small, they actually make a big difference to our emissions. The extra trees are especially helpful in this regard. From the paper directly:

Under our ETS [emissions trading scheme] scenarios there is substantial reforestation. The extra removals associated with this new planting mean that the additional sequestration in 2024 is from 17.6 to 20 percent of national inventory agricultural emissions in 2008.

That’s a huge amount of emissions, and would help New Zealand immensely in our quest to lower our emissions.

In terms of cows and sheep, we actually see more dairy cows, and fewer sheep and beef farms. This is because dairy farms are so much more profitable, and the balance is tipped even more in their favour once a price is applied to farming emissions. This is already happening to a much larger extent, and only the already marginal sheep and beef farms are converted to dairy or forestry under an efficient response to a carbon price. The overall change is only minor in the scheme of things, and even when you exclude agricultural emissions from a carbon price, this still happens (see the first graph below).

So these results suggest that there are large benefits to having a $25 carbon price in New Zealand for forestry and our country’s emissions profile. As for agricultural emissions, if dairy and sheep and beef farmers face a price on their emissions, the sky won’t fall in, but the adjustments that are already taking place will just continue to a greater extent. By creating an efficient, economy-wide price signal which includes agriculture, we should achieve more mitigation overall (see the second graph below). If on farm mitigation is encouraged optimally, and technologies continue to improve, we might well see less of the minor reduction in farming in the model and instead end up with more efficient farms on our rural land.

Bringing agricultural emissions into the ETS or some other pricing mechanism must occur once farmers are ready and on board. Through research like this, and having a dialogue with all interested parties, we can hopefully move forward together, and work towards future-proofing our golf courses, and our farms.

And now, for those of you who get a kick out of graphs (like me), here are some relevant ones:

This graph above shows the projected change in land use share for each type of land use. The solid lines give baseline projections. Short-dash-dot lines give a $25 carbon price, but not on agriculture. Dashed lines show a carbon price with agriculture. Note the y axis is the same scale for each graph so direct comparisons can be made (page 9).

This graph shows the amount of emissions that are reduced or sequestered. The red line is with just forestry, the blue line shows including agricultural emissions as well increases the emission reductions (page 16).

  

This final graph below shows why sheep and beef farms have been declining over the years, and how land use change is gradual (page 4 of Kerr and Olssen 2012).

The Taupō Beef Story

AgDialogue member Mike Barton farms sheep and beef on the shores of Lake Taupō. In July this year legislation was passed that caps total nitrogen discharges into Lake Taupō, limiting farmers’ ability to intensify production. In response to this, and in an attempt to increase the returns for meat production, Mike decided to set up Taupō Beef to sell premium, sustainably-produced beef. Mike’s experience offers an insight into the potential for New Zealand farmers to receive a premium price by appealing to sustainability-conscious consumers. Below, we outline the Taupō Beef project, and discuss the challenges and opportunities for farmers looking to increase the value of their output through “green” production.

Taupō Beef

As a result of increasing nutrient runoff from farms (and other sources), in 2011 the Waikato Regional Council (WRC) introduced new regulation to cap and decrease agricultural runoff in the Lake Taupō catchment. Under the new regulation, farmers’ nutrient runoff is capped, and can only increase if farmers purchase allowances from others who decrease their runoff. Consequently, Taupō farmers cannot increase profits by boosting production, as this would require farmers to purchase nutrient discharge allowances. Facing these limits, Mike established Taupō Beef in an attempt to increase profits by improving the prices he receives for his output.

Taupō Beef sells sustainably produced meat to consumers at a premium price.  For the recently completed initial trail period, two Taupō farms supplied the beef to four local restaurants and a retail butcher. Both farms were verified by WRC as sustainable producers meeting the conditions of the new regulation. The restaurants involved included the Huka Lodge and the Bistro Lago Restaurant at the Hilton Taupō. Taupō Beef provided the restaurants with training, and brochures and table cards to communicate the Taupō Beef story to consumers. In return, the restaurants and butcher were asked to charge a premium for Taupō Beef meat. For example, Bistro Lago charged up to $46 for a Taupō Beef eye fillet dish, $7.50 more than a similar, conventionally-sourced dish. This premium was charged to test how willing consumers were to pay extra for sustainably produced meat.

The feedback from the restaurants, butcher, and consumers involved in the trial period was overwhelmingly positive. All restaurants reported that the sustainable local production story resonated with customers. Indeed, three out of the four restaurants reported significant increases in beef meal sales, despite the premium price charged. All restaurants and the butcher wanted to continue with Taupō Beef beyond the trial period. The regional council, the local tourism board, and Lake Water Quality Action Group (a local environmental trust) also vigorously supported the initiative.

While the feedback has been uniformly positive for the Taupō Beef trial, challenges exist. A key issue is Taupō Beef’s small scale.  Mike outlines this in a recent report that assesses the Taupō trial period:

"We will struggle to develop a viable business model until we have achieved greater scale and volume. In order to achieve greater scale and volume, we need to prove to farmers and the (meat) processor that we have a viable business model."

The Taupō Beef trial has been extended for a further 12 months. The hope is to increase the scale of the project, to improve the long-term viability of the business model. Taupō Beef is seeking a single large customer or distributor to assist with this.

Lessons for greenhouse gas emissions

The key conclusion from the Taupō Beef trial was that consumers are willing to spend more on meat that is produced in a way that protects Lake Taupo.  It is difficult to tease out whether this is due to the water quality story or the quality of the beef, and whether the same result would apply outside of the local area. However, the fact that consumers are willing to spend extra to support the sustainable production of food is a promising result. The project also highlighted a number of other lessons for New Zealand farmers looking to increase the value of their output through sustainable production: 

•          Purchasers all along the supply chain were willing to pay extra for ‘green’ production: restaurants and consumers.
•          Consumers who are able to pay a premium for sustainable production often have a good understanding of the environmental issues.
•         Close relationships between farmers, processors, and purchasers are critical to success.
•          Having trustworthy verification of environmental claims is important to consumers.

The trial also demonstrated a number of issues that Mike argues are illustrative of wider problems plaguing the red meat industry. There is a widespread lack of trust between farmers and meat processors: farmers are doubtful that sustained increases in returns can be attained by processors, and in turn, processors are deeply suspicious of farmers, believing that they will change contracts as soon as another player offers them an increased premium. As a result, Mike observes that “the red meat industry is not currently providing returns to beef farmers that can compete with dairying and forestry because of this prevailing short-term ‘cannibalistic’ business model”. This was illustrated during the trial, when a major meat company attempted to sell meat cuts back into the trial restaurants at a substantial discount to the prices Taupō Beef was charging, rather than wait and see if the TaupōBeef approach had the potential to build value for all. Mike concludes that it is this lack of will to work collaboratively, from all players in the meat industry, that is limiting farmer returns. 

The Taupō Beef project shows that at a local scale consumers are willing to pay for sustainably produced food. Whether the same result would apply to an emissions story is not certain, but Taupō Beef certainly demonstrates the potential. The challenges Taupō Beef faced are also illustrative of the challenges that might be faced by farmers looking to sell low-emissions beef. It seems clear that to succeed at growing returns for New Zealand farmers, the whole industry will need to get past its current state of mutual distrust and work together to take advantage of the opportunities.

Agricultural Emissions Dialogue - About

This blog has been set up as a forum for discussing agriculture and greenhouse gas emissions with a New Zealand focus. Contributors from a variety of relevant backgrounds -  farming, industry, public policy, and science - will post regularly on a broad range of topics relevant to agricultural emissions. 

Much of the material for the blog will be contributed by members of the AgDialogue group. The AgDialogue group has been established with the aim of ensuring that agricultural emissions are addressed in New Zealand in a way that is robust, effective, efficient and fair. Participants include dairy and sheep and beef farmers, as well as individuals from agriculture support and leadership sectors, Iwi members, and people with expertise in national, regional and sectoral policy - groups as diverse as DairyNZ, Meat Industry Association, Local Government New Zealand, Greenpeace, the NZ Institute and The Morgan Foundation. Each meeting the group is joined by one to three additional participants with fresh perspectives – from sectors, from regional New Zealand, or national experts.

We think that dialogue between the different groups interested in agricultural emissions is essential. As a group, participants have the potential to see things that they could not have seen separately, and there is the potential for genuinely innovative thinking to emerge. The secret is to invite in and draw out the full depth of contributions that each participant brings, and to invest the time to allow the individuals and the group as a whole to develop new capabilities together.

This blog is an attempt to broaden the conversation further, and provide a space for people outside the AgDialogue group to join the conversation. We hope that you join in and contribute by using the comments section to share your own views, ideas and stories. If you have a specific topic that you would like to discuss please get in touch.