Kiwis are being urged to back New Zealand sheep and beef farmers as part of a new campaign designed to raise awareness about crippling Government policies.

This morning, in partnership with B+LNZ we launched the @KiwisBackingFarmers campaign. The campaign is aimed at raising awareness of the overwhelming wave of environmental policies and proposals threatening the future of NZ’s sheep and beef farms.

In particular for us, most urgently, the Government must introduce measures to address the out-of-control conversion of sheep and beef farms into carbon farming.

We've never been anti forestry, and we support the integration of trees within farms. However, as witnessed, as the carbon price increases, more and more productive farms are being sold and converted into carbon farms so fossil fuel emitters can offset their emissions rather than reduce them.

It is a short-term solution and is kicking the can down the road at the expense of rural communities.
 

The scale and pace of this change will hollow out those rural communities, with many small businesses like vets, shearers, garages and schools closing down.

One key response is required. We are calling on the Government to put limits on the amount of forestry that can be offset in the Emissions Trading Scheme otherwise it will just hasten the number of farmers leaving the land.
 

We hope you can support this campaign. It is underpinned by a microsite www.kiwisbackingfarmers.nz, and encourages people to write to Ministers and MPs asking for specific policy changes using a pre-written email template with pre-loaded email addresses. All you have to do is check a few boxes and click ‘send’.

We need your help! Show your support by sharing this post and visiting the www.kiwisbackingfarmers.nz website to send an email to the Ministers and MPs asking for changes to policy.

© Scoop Media