Situation and outlook for New Zealand agriculture and forestry (August 2007)
Issues facing the primary sector
3 Sustainable development
Sustainable development is about meeting today’s needs without compromising future generations’ needs. It fosters ongoing changes to the environment. Dynamism, innovation, and flexibility are essential for profitability, and, in turn, profitability is essential for ensuring sustainable development.
MAF is focusing on harmonising economic growth and environmental quality. Sustainable development does not have to be a stark “win–lose” trade-off between the economy and the environment. Per capita economic growth and the environment do not have to be in conflict; rather, economic growth is needed to “purchase” more environmental quality and a better quality of life.
The key environmental issue is not the sustainability of resources, but the fundamental workings of the biophysical environment, such as carbon and nitrogen cycles, hydrological systems, and biodiversity. The focus should not be on specific natural resources, such as oil and minerals, but on the functions these resources deliver, such as lighting and warmth.
How a resource is used changes as technology and other factors change. The concern with resources is not just whether they are exhaustible, but with the consequences of their use, such as pollution arising from their production and consumption. Some consequences have a localised effect; others damage the global environment. The impact of these consequences, especially if they can be directly related to New Zealand’s production practices, may affect how we are viewed internationally.
Sustainable development in a global context
Sustainable development in New Zealand must be placed in a wider global context. Our environmental performance will increasingly influence our access to commercial markets and the acceptability of our products to consumers, especially in the European Union and other markets in the developed world. Even now, consumers are reacting to emotive arguments about “food miles”, and supermarket chains are demanding assurances about the environmental impact of products’ production as well as about product safety and surety.
Subsidised producers in other countries, who keep their animals in barns, import feed, and use energy-intensive production systems, will struggle to match the low through-life greenhouse gas impact of New Zealand pastoral and horticultural practices. New Zealand may increasingly compete internationally on the basis of the results from techniques such as the life-cycle analysis, which shows the relatively low impact of our exports on the global environment. This could be a competitive advantage for New Zealand, although it will mean more scrutiny of any environmental claims we make. It means we will have to address carbon “hot spots” in our value chains such as the use of coal in the dairy-processing, meat-processing, and other food-processing sectors.
Sustainability and climate change
Major economic changes and business opportunities come from an ability to adapt to new situations, whether technological, demographic, cultural, or political. Climate change is a massive biophysical discontinuity arising from the effects of technological and economic activity on the environment. The question we face is whether we can adapt quickly enough to create opportunities.
Imagine the country that will cope best with climate change. The country would be an island state, because oceans smooth out the worst extremes of climate change. It would have a high ratio of coastline to land area and be in the roaring forties to optimise wind power and ensure plenty of water. The country would be mountainous to provide hydro-power, be geologically active, and have rich volcanic soils and geothermal energy. It would also have a biologically based economy, because anything you can do with oil you can do with plants. In short, New Zealand is exceptionally well placed to adapt to changes created as a result of climate change.
New Zealand has the opportunity to be the world leader in mitigating methane and nitrous oxide emissions in pastoral agriculture and in developing life-cycle analysis methodologies and verification systems.
Energy and climate change
Opportunities exist for greater energy efficiency on farms and orchards, for distributed and off-grid generation, and for new bio-energy technologies such as co-generation with wood energy. The potential for some bio-energy technologies to leave a high carbon char for permanent sequestration in soil, perhaps also lifting productivity and suppressing nitrous oxide emissions, is stimulating a lot of interest internationally.
Additionally, the energy embodied in synthetic nitrogen fertiliser and in building materials will be increasingly profiled in life-cycle analyses. These will change how we view our extensive pastoral management systems and building engineering.
Opportunities exist for businesses to drive innovative ways of replacing fossil fuels with bio-energy and other renewable energy sources. This will greatly strengthen our ability to differentiate ourselves as sustainable producers in international markets.
Climate changeClimate change is a huge focus of international concern and will have a major effect on people’s lives. The major sustainability issues facing the agriculture and forestry sectors include:
An effective response to climate change requires a significant and sustained commitment of resources from both the Government and the land-based sectors. MAF is developing policy to support an effective response to climate change. We are taking into account the views expressed in the 1200 submissions received in response to our discussion document Sustainable Land Management and Climate Change. The Government has established a taskforce to work on an economy-wide emissions trading regime that includes all sectors and all greenhouse gases. Many of the options outlined in the discussion document complement a trading regime and could be implemented alongside it; for example, adaptation measures, research, the creation of forest sinks, and capitalising on business opportunities arising from climate change. The Government has established a new research fund to support international co-operation on agriculture and forestry climate change research. The fund provides $1 million each year for:
This fund will help to ensure New Zealand continues to be recognised as a world leader in measuring and mitigating pastoral agriculture greenhouse gases. The Government wants to establish a durable and constructive way of working with the sectors and local government to address all aspects of climate change. This means making effective links between government-led and industry-led initiatives. |
Sustainability and the domestic challenges
Agriculture and forestry use more than 50 percent of New Zealand’s land and more than 70 percent of New Zealand’s abstracted fresh water, and have major effects on our land and water environments. Key domestic issues include:
- avoiding microbial water contamination;
- eliminating or reducing the use of ozone-depleting chemicals;
- avoiding or mitigating pesticide or heavy metal contamination of the soil;
- avoiding the nitrification of waterways; and
- minimising the effects of soil erosion.
Property rights are vital for sustainability. Well-defined, exclusive, and tradable property rights, individual rights, and the right to farm are fundamental to sustainability. Property rights imply a correlative set of duties, so a right to farm also means an obligation to address the negative consequences of that farming. Difficult issues arise when an existing and accepted land or resource use becomes unacceptable because of new knowledge about environmental impacts or socioeconomic factors.
The Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry’s future directions
MAF needs to take the lead on issues such as the transition from less-sustainable to more-sustainable forms of land use, particularly in erosion-prone hill country. To manage such transitions successfully, MAF must have a fair and efficient basis for apportioning the costs and benefits associated with those transitions. This basis must uphold business and investment confidence and support the dynamism and flexibility needed to change land use.
We must ensure sustainable industries are facilitated, not impeded, by our policy and regulatory frameworks. Markets struggle with regulatory uncertainty. Creating unnecessarily high regulatory hurdles can cause projects to be delayed or abandoned. This can impede the development of innovative, environmentally sound, and sustainable industries while leaving in place existing polluting industries.
MAF’s sustainable development work points to the benefits of market-based and property rights-based approaches to dealing with natural resource and environmental concerns. Such approaches could include emissions trading and trading of water consents. Fit-for-purpose regulation will continue to play a key role, and, in many cases, regulation will be needed to underpin market-based solutions. Well-designed regulation can facilitate technological change and innovation.
Sustainable development is about thinking, planning, and implementing projects that will generate immediate per capita income increases while maintaining and developing local environments. It is about positioning New Zealand as a leading innovator in sustainable development internationally. It is about contributing to the global environment. And, most importantly, it is about securing a positive future for the generations to come.
It is incumbent on all of us to discuss sustainability. Working on sustainable development will be a cornerstone of New Zealand’s success in the years ahead.
| For more information on MAF’s thinking about sustainable development, see Sustainable Development of New Zealand Agriculture and Forestry. Future MAF papers will address:
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Contact for Enquiries
Manager
Monitoring and Evaluation
MAF Policy
PO Box 2526
Wellington
NEW ZEALAND
Phone: +64 4 894 0623
Fax: +64 4 894 0741
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