Climate Change Actions 3 New Zealand Farmers are Doing

To curb carbon emissions, New Zealand created a Zero-Carbon Amendment Bill to neutralise carbon emissions by 2050. The bill specifies two types of Carbon:

• greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels from industries and individual emissions, and
• biogenic methane that is produced by the agricultural sector, MFE 2019.

Agricultural emissions accounted for 49.2% of total emissions 2016, mostly from agricultural activities and livestock farming. The pastoral sector is facing increasing pressures to reign in its carbon emissions (Farmers feel New Zealand, 2019).

So what are these climate change actions these three NZ farmers are doing?

Stuff NZ interviewed three New Zealand farmers who incorporate climate change action into their daily work. They all say that the rewards speak for themselves.

Christopher Falconer

“I don’t make climate change-based decisions for what we do on-farm. I don’t. But as it happens, there’s a great deal of overlap between what is good for the climate and what is good for all sorts of other things,” Christopher Falconer, a Waikato dairy farmer, told Stuff about mitigating the effects of climate change.

Falconer revealed he does not do any cropping on his farm to build organic matter in the soil, which holds moisture in dry periods. He said that the no-cropping system he implemented prevents him from using artificial fertilisers for more than a year, reviving the pasture’s soil fauna, soil health, and longevity.

• He breeds cows that produce milk more efficiently, thus reducing the number of cattle but still producing the same amount of milk.
• He protects wetlands on his farm by building a fence around them and plants so many trees that he loses count.
• One of his projects is a 250K effluent system to manage cattle wastes effectively.
• He does not rear his heifer but puts the herd to beef bulls, selling most of the calves and buying replacement stock when needed. A recycling process can reduce carbon emissions that would otherwise be produced when rearing your herd of heifers.

He further adds that farmers must be mature when dealing with these issues.

Beck and Richard Toswill

Farming sheep and beef in their 646 hectares of the hill country, Beck and Richard Toswill have the future in mind. The Toswills respect their land and want to protect the environment.

What the Toswills have done and are doing:

• Retired areas of land unsuited to stock and have planted over 28 thousand trees.
• GPS technology can be used to pinpoint areas that need fertiliser and avoid applying it near waterways, making farming more efficient.
• Protect their limestone spring wetland, placing it under the QEII national trust to protect it even if their land is sold.
• As the Toswills have climate change in mind, they continue to look for areas to improve.

Mark Anderson

Working on his farm in Southland, Mark Anderson wished that he had started what he was doing 15 years earlier.

“We’re mainly focusing on soil health to grow nutrient-dense plants, and then not only to feed the soil but also to feed our animals and the people who consume our products,” Anderson says in the article.

Mark shares some of his learning:

• Vegetation acts as the soil’s natural armour. Its roots hold onto the soil while enriching it via liquid Carbon, feeding the soil organisms year-round.
• It also filters water, which can clean up rivers, slow the water cycle, and reduce soil nutrients and losses due to erosion, thus increasing the soil’s resilience to drought and water conditions.

He is also applying diversity planting, which results in pest-resistant crops and encourages insect biodiversity. He says this eliminates the need for pesticides on his farm.

He is amazed at the positive effects of good farming practices and believes that soil health can contribute to curbing New Zealand’s carbon emissions.