Federated Farmers is calling for the Government to urgently distance itself from a radical new pine planting proposal released by the Climate Change Commission late last week.

"The proposal would see large swathes of productive farmland sacrificed in the name of emission reductions," says Federated Farmers meat and wool chair Toby Williams.

"That would be the death knell for sheep farming as we know it in New Zealand, but also our small towns, rural communities and the families who call them home."

Williams was responding to advice from the Climate Change Commission about how New Zealand could achieve a new Paris target of a greater than 50 per cent emission reduction.

New Zealand currently has a Paris Target of reducing emissions by 50 per cent by 2030, but the Government has been asked by the UN to come up with a new 2035 target by February.

"New Zealand needs to have a serious conversation about these targets and how much they are going to cost us as a country - and I’m not just talking financial costs," Williams says.

"If the only way we can meet our international obligations is to plant entire communities in trees, undermine our productive sectors, or buy offshore units, then we have a serious problem.

"I think most reasonable New Zealanders would absolutely reject any future for our country that involves planting some of our most iconic rural landscapes in a blanket of pine trees."

The Commission envisages that by 2035 New Zealand will have 12 to 15 per cent fewer dairy cows and a drastic 18 to 24 per cent fewer sheep and beef stock.

They also assume that between 2021 and 2030, 322,000 to 437,000 hectares of pine trees and 135,000 to 412,000 hectares of native trees will be planted.

This totals up to an astounding 850,000 hectares of land soon to be converted into forest, forever changing the face of rural New Zealand and our unique landscapes.

For context, that’s an area five times the size of Molesworth Station to be planted in trees by 2030.

"This all may sound good to some policy analyst sitting in Wellington playing with a spreadsheet, but in reality it will be a total disaster," Williams says.

"When you dig into the numbers they might add up, but that doesn’t mean they make sense, particularly for our small towns and rural families being surrounded by a wall of pine trees.

"More trees will mean fewer sheep, fewer cows, fewer jobs, fewer people, and billions of dollars less export income every year. That’s a recipe for nothing but total economic ruin."

The most recent Beef + Lamb NZ Stock Number Survey showed, in just a 12-month period, ewes and beef cattle numbers fell 3 per cent, while hogget numbers fell 7 per cent.

"The Government needs to take urgent action to stop the needless destruction of New Zealand’s once-thriving sheep and beef sector," Williams says.

"The last thing they should be doing is signing up to new, and even more unrealistic, climate targets, particularly when they don’t even know how we will meet our current target.

"Instead, they should be focused on urgently reviewing the badly broken ETS settings that distort the market and encourage the mass planting of pine trees on productive farmland."

Federated Farmers says the Government should follow through on their campaign promise and limit on farm conversions to forestry to protect local communities and food production.

© Scoop Media