I’m writing to update you on our NZ Taxonomy rebuttal that Farmers Weekly refused to print, how we met with the Centre for Sustainable Finance (the people writing the NZ Taxonomy), and how the Government’s ETS farm-to-forestry conversions don’t go far enough.

Just the facts, please

We can tell our campaigning against the NZ Taxonomy is working. The Centre for Sustainable Finance was in damage control mode, writing in Farmers Weekly to try convince farmers that they aren't planning to regulate farming out of business or micromanage their operations.

Groundswell NZ environmental spokesperson Jamie McFadden wrote a direct reply, detailing how the NZ Taxonomy proposal does plan to “phase out” farming that can’t meet the impossible rules it sets.

Here’s a highlight:

What happens if your farm or business is classified red? In the words of the proposal – “our expectation is the only way for them (red) to be aligned with a 1.5 degree future aligned with Paris is for them to be phased out.”

Jo Kelly states a taxonomy is nothing more than a classification tool. This was the same sales pitch we got with SNAs (Significant Natural Areas) – a simple classification tool, recognising areas of special value and beneficial to environmentally progressive farmers.

The problem is not merely having a classification, but all the unworkable rules, the bureaucracy and the cost that goes with it. Welcome to NZ Taxonomy.

Farmers Weekly decided that sort of accountability for those who seek to regulate us doesn’t belong on their pages, so you can read the rest of Jamie's NZ Taxonomy reply here: https://www.groundswellnz.co.nz/news/who-to-believe

Taking the campaign to the source

We can also tell our campaign is working, because the Centre for Sustainable Finance asked to meet with us about their NZ Taxonomy proposal.

While there is some credit to be given for seeking to meet with their critics, the conversation went about as well as you’d imagine.

Despite being the self-declared experts on climate change, financial incentives, and implementing the Paris Agreement, they had clearly never engaged with even the obvious and basic critiques we presented.

Anyone with a passing interest in climate politics in New Zealand must surely have heard of the emissions leakage argument, right?

You’ve heard it from us, but many others since we made it the centrepiece of the Stop the Farming Tax campaign. Even National MPs know it by heart now:

Kiwi farmers are already the most efficient in the world so restrictions on their emissions will only reduce their production, while the world will keep eating what it already does, so less efficient foreign farmers will take up the slack in the market, increasing global emissions.

Seeking to regulate the financing of food production in New Zealand without understanding these basic points should be disqualifying.

But that’s exactly what we found. Earnest people out to save the world, whose best argument is that the rest of the world is doing it, so we should too.

These are not serious people, but they’ve been empowered to a seriously dangerous position: using the backing of the Government to write unworkable, counterproductive, but fashionable regulations that threaten the very existence of farming as we know it in New Zealand.

Any politicians taken in by these so-called experts should bring them in for a chat and see whether they still have the confidence to leave the regulating of access to financial services to them.

The campaign is working. Some politicians in the Coalition are getting the message. We just have to make sure Climate Change Minister Simon Watts either changes his mind or has it changed for him by his more realistic colleagues.

Carbon farming forestry is still a threat to food production

You may recall our partial support for the Coalition Government’s new restrictions on farm-to-forestry conversions qualifying under the ETS.

The changes are a step in the right direction but, as we said at the time, there are some large holes that will allow continued conversions, even wholesale complete farm conversions, that were a cause for concern.

Well, the numbers are in from a Beef + Lamb analysis and it turns out that the step in the right direction is more of a shuffle, as the holes allowing more conversions are more like gaping caverns.

The most important figure to understand is the 18% reduction in sheep and beef stock numbers by 2050 that Beef + Lamb project will still occur under the new restrictions. That’s due to the over 650,000 hectares of sheep and beef farmland that will still be converted into forestry.

With 92,000 jobs relying on the red meat sector, an 18% reduction in stock could mean over 16,000 jobs are gone, mostly in rural communities.

As we always make a point to reiterate, this isn’t about the forestry that the market actually wants. The dozens of considerations that affect land use decisions by landowners and local communities might see some specific patch of land better suited to growing timber than feeding stock. Forestry is an important part of New Zealand’s primary industries.

But that would be the market at work, the ETS is a completely different situation.

After food production is stacked with unworkable regulations, new land use restrictions crop up from councils mapping SNAs and other classifications, and the future of food production is unclear with National still planning their own farming tax by 2030, converting to pines in the ETS looks like a safe way out.

Some economists will declare the abstract ideal of the ETS a market solution, but the holistic effect of government policy is to price in only some of the externalities, sometimes punishing an activity twice over, while failing to measure other effects all together.

In practice, the ETS is just incentivising what it counts and that’s new pine trees and avoiding anti-farming regulations.

The new restrictions are supposed to recognise that and, while it would be better to fix the source of the problem by culling unworkable regulations, a band-aid over the top would be better than nothing.

But the actual reduction in farm-to-forestry conversions is only by a fraction.

For example, Beef + Lamb calculate that, on average, 21,713 hectares of land class 6 land is converted each year over the last 8 years, while the new restrictions still allow for 15,000 hectares per year in that land class.

That’s a reduction, but not even by a third.

The restrictions don’t go nearly far enough. This is just blunting the impact of what remains a stalking horse threatening the future of farming in New Zealand and the rural communities that rely on it.

That’s why we’re calling for a complete moratorium on farm-to-forestry conversions in the ETS.

There has been enough damage already. Merely cutting down on conversions is not enough.

You can read the rest of Beef + Lamb’s analysis of the restrictions and their limited impact in their submission on the bill by clicking here here.

Gene Technology Bill gets a minor pause

There is some good news on the Gene Technology Bill, with a delay in the parliamentary report process allowing more time for people to have their say to MPs.

If you recall, we think the bill is too open for a proper public debate about what exactly we’re allowing. It would be up to bureaucrats and whoever the minister is at any point to decide what genetic engineering is allowed in New Zealand.

Worse still, the bill has only been considered by the Health Committee and we think, at least, that the bill ought to be considered by the Primary Production Committee, who understand the impact this could have on food production.

The following is from Concerned Farmers NZ and we encourage you to go to their site at www.concernedfarmersnz.org.

With the Health Select Committee delaying their report on the Gene Technology Bill until August 22 there is a golden opportunity for farmers to express their concerns about how this Bill will affect their business. The report is presented to the whole of parliament prior to the second reading of the Bill.   Whether one is in favour of using gene technology or not the framework of the proposed Bill has some significant gaps as to how it will work for farmers and growers.  In it's current format the Bill will impact trade access and markets amongst other issues.  Concerns around the Bill are encapsulated in the following article.

‍https://newsroom.co.nz/2025/07/18/radical-genetech-bill-ignores-global-standards-at-kiwi-producers-peril/

‍CFNZ is encouraging people to email concerns to coalition MP's at this crucial time in the Bills process, in particular NZF or ACT MP's with amendments needed to the Bill being debated by the Select Committee now. Wellington has failed to include farmers in the development of this Bill.  With the 3 week delay to the Select Committee report being published we have a rare window in which to influence a sound workable outcome for all.  Further details are on our website www.concernedfarmersnz.org

Thank you again for your support.

Kind regards,

Bryce, Laurie, and the Team at Groundswell NZ

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