The results from our survey are in and it’s clear that farmers understand that Paris is the problem.

Over 2,000 farmers responded to the joint survey we promoted in collaboration with the Methane Science Accord and NZ Farming.

Some might say that isn’t a scientific poll, and it isn’t, but that’s 2,000 out of the 13,000 or so farmers in New Zealand. With the strength of the numbers in the poll results, we’re comfortable saying these views represent enough grassroots farmers that the Government and Ag Sector leadership need to take notice.

For the Quit Paris campaign, the main results are definitive:

• 94% say remaining in the Paris Accord is not in the country’s best interest.
• 87% say their businesses will be negatively or very negatively impacted over the next decade if current climate policy settings persist.
• 80% say agriculture is carrying an unfair share of emissions reduction.

Farmers understand that Paris is a bad deal for New Zealand and that the impossible emissions reduction targets set by the Government will make food production harder and more expensive.

Looking after the real environment

But it isn’t as if farmers don’t care about the environment, they just understand what will actually work. 66% said they would prioritise the kind of on-the-ground environmental work - fencing waterways, riparian planting, pest and weed control - done by farmers, against 2.4% who preferred methane reduction technologies.

It’s hard to understand for the bureaucratic class sitting in Wellington office buildings but caring for the land and water we live and work with is a real, physical job. While moving gas budgets around and throwing $28 billion away to buy emissions credits is layer upon layer of abstraction, based on the fundamentally flawed foundation that is the Paris Agreement.

Methane can’t be wished away, and it doesn’t need to be

As for those methane reduction technologies, Kiwi farmers are the most efficient in the world for good reasons and we’ll continue picking up the new technologies that make sense for producing the food that people around the world want to buy. Despite the hype, it increasingly appears that inhibiting methane just inhibits producing protein.

If methane reduction research ever does create some silver bullet, then we can talk. But farmers are keenly aware of the real demands from their local and global customers. Right now, methane reduction technology is just an excuse to make a Farming Tax sound more reasonable by waving away objections that Kiwi farmers are already as low emissions as it is possible to be.  

That’s why 71% of farmers in the survey stated they would not adopt methane mitigation measures, even if tools or technologies were readily available.

And farmers know, as noted above, that targeting agricultural methane is just an attempt to make more room for the rest of the economy to avoid cuts. The Climate Change Commission themselves told us that the decisions about who should cut emissions to meet the national targets are political ones. It doesn’t have to be the case that agriculture makes the cuts.

In fact, the only reason to target agriculture at all is a failure to grapple with the nature of the agricultural emissions cycle, where the outdated GWP100 metric makes reductions in cyclical methane look like bigger, leaving more room for other emitters to avoid reductions.

We think the Paris targets are impossible and should be done away with, but within that system it’s particularly galling to make agriculture pay to make room for emissions in the rest of the economy.

Paris threatens food production itself

But then we come to the darker side of the survey results.

87% of farmers believe their businesses will be negatively or very negatively impacted over the next decade, if current climate policy settings persist, while 71% expressed no confidence that the agricultural sector can survive under the current climate framework.

Global prices might have things looking up for some in the short term, but looking out ahead at the political, legal, and regulatory track we’re on, the old dark clouds are still on the horizon.

There are good signs that some of the debate is turning. It was impossible to imagine political parties talking about leaving the Paris Agreement just a few years ago.

But it remains National Party policy to bring in a Farming Tax by 2030 and the next Labour-Green Government could be just an election away.

This is why our campaign to Quit Paris is just as much about convincing the middle voter as it is about prodding at politicians. To save farming as we know it in New Zealand, the average person on the street has to know that Paris is a bad deal for New Zealand and makes us all poorer for no reduction in global emissions.

Who speaks for farmers?

One of the main reasons for this survey is to demonstrate to farmers and the leadership of their Ag Sector bodies that there is a major disconnect when it comes to the goals, values, and interests of grassroots farmers and those who are supposed to speak for them.

Through public fights and the odd election, some things have gotten better when it comes to sector leadership. But on Paris and methane, we’re still too often seeing representatives and executives apologising for farming instead of making the case for it.

Until they do, Groundswell and other like-minded organisations will keep on at them. The grassroots farmer can no longer be ignored.

It’s time, again, for those paid to sit at the top of the Ag Sector to learn to take farmers’ views and interests forward, rather than explaining to farmers why they have to take it from the politicians, banks, and activists.

Trade is still no reason to stay in Paris

On exactly that, the tired attempts to end debates and interviews about Paris by shouting “but our trade!” have worn out entirely.

National, along with the others who want to go on pretending that Paris is a neutral process, keep relying on their tired trade arguments, but they won’t interact with the actual arguments about trade. They just hope it will scare the audience and make quitting Paris sound extreme to the casual listener.

Of course our trade is important, that’s exactly why all those types from the Prime Minister on down try to use it as a bogeyman to avoid the real argument. But still, no politician has explained why the EU can breach their commitment in our free trade agreement to end fossil fuel subsidies, while we can’t negotiate a change to our Paris involvement.

Have they even asked our trade partners what would happen if we withdrew from the Paris Agreement? What about if the emissions targets in our Nationally Determined Contribution were reset to account for New Zealand’s particular situation?

But of course not. Our governing class have demonstrated complete cowardice and a lack of creativity concerning New Zealand’s international stance on emissions. They just hope this campaign will go away and they can go back to the bureaucrats tinkering away with unworkable rules to meet impossible targets.

In fact, Paris hurts our trade. It makes NZ food production less competitive with the rules and regulations bureaucrats invent to chase the impossible emissions reduction targets. That’s also an effective subsidy for higher emissions overseas.

Quitting Paris will not hurt our trade, it may even help it. We’re looking forward to farming advocates eventually coming around once they see no one is buying these trade scare tactics.

You can read the full survey results here: www.groundswellnz.co.nz/news/paris-survey-2025

This survey shows that the message is getting out there. More and more people are understanding just how bad the Paris Agreement is for New Zealand.

There is plenty more work to be done, but the campaign is working.

Thank you again for your support.

Kind regards,

Bryce, Laurie, and the Team at Groundswell NZ

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