Federated Farmers "Resilient Agri-business" Conference

2 July 2015

Federated Farmers "Resilient Agri-business" Conference

Massey Professor Ralph Sims challenged Federated Farmers National Conference today that New Zealand is not doing enough to mitigate and adapt to climate change.

"In spite of what the Government says, there is no policy in place apart from the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), [and] I've no idea how we are going to meet our target of a five per cent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions before 2020.

"We can buy carbon credits from the Ukraine (it's cheap) or grow more trees and reduce transport emissions, but that's not going to make much a difference to our carbon dioxide emissions before 2020," he said.

He said man's contribution to climate change is backed by strong science, it will impact on us all.

"It's unacceptable really, compared to other countries we are not doing our fair share. We still have a chance to put something in place at the Paris (UN Climate Change) summit but, we are running out of time," he said.

Professor Sims meanwhile welcomed the fact Federated Farmers had moved its thinking forward on climate change.

SODA Chief Executive Claire McGowan earlier in the day discussed the importance of resilience and it's relation to innovation, explaining innovation was the process of linking IP to markets and that IP wasn't just patents, it could be business processes as well.

She told the conference those businesses that focused on innovation were ultimately financially benefiting and reiterated the importance of the agriculture sector working together to capture the most value.

Minister of Primary Industries Nathan Guy opened proceedings and reminded farmers that while times were tough with economic and climate volatility, resilience was turning challenges into opportunities.

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