“You don’t have to go far to find a grumpy farmer around here,” says Lina Day. She’s standing in a livestock pen at the sales yards in Feilding, in the north island of New Zealand. Farmers are having a tough year: the inflation rate for farming materials and resources – known as on-farm inflation – stands at 16.3%, or more than double the national figure.
“Everyone is feeling it,” she says. “We need a change – I’m not saying anyone’s better than the ones we’ve got now, but we need a change.
“If Labour get back in, my husband says, we’re selling up and moving to Australia.”
Weeks out from New Zealand’s election, farmers, like everyone else, are worried about the cost of living. While food exports, and in particular dairy, earned record revenue last year, inflation, mortgage prices and a drop in demand from China mean farmers’ costs are up, and the relative prices of beef, lamb and dairy are down.
As they prepare to vote on 14 October, the climate policies of the major and minor parties are weighing heavily on farmers’ minds. In particular, they’ll be looking at how parties would act on pricing agricultural emissions – and what that would mean for their livelihoods.
Farmers’ votes will play a key role in deciding how big a position parties such as Act or New Zealand First would have in a coalition government, says Hugh Campbell, a sociology professor at the University of Otago’s Centre for Sustainability. Both parties would likely push National further to the right – and the chances of reducing methane emissions further into the future.
‘Existential’ problem
Six years ago Jacinda Ardern swept to victory with the message that climate change was her generation’s “nuclear-free moment”. Two years later, in 2019, Ardern’s landmark climate legislation, the zero carbon bill, was passed with cross-party support, and she launched the He Waka Eke Noa (HWEN) scheme, a partnership between farming leaders, Māori and government that recommended farming emissions be priced. Agricultural emissions are not part of the national emissions trading scheme (ETS).
But by 2023, no price had been set. In August, Labour, facing a general election under the leadership of Chris Hipkins, said agricultural emissions pricing would be decided by a future government. If Labour wins, farmers have until the end of 2025 to come up with an alternative emissions pricing scheme, or be included in the national ETS. National – which is leading in the polls – has pushed the deadline out even further, saying a pricing scheme should be determined by 2030. HWEN may be abandoned altogether – National pulled its support for the scheme in June.
Farming is responsible for 50% of New Zealand’s emissions, mostly from methane. But, says Stephen Levine, a politics professor at Victoria University of Wellington, the economy, co-governance and crime have all overshadowed the issue of reducing methane emissions.
Because such a high proportion of the country’s emissions is from pastoral farming, and because agriculture is vital to New Zealand’s economy – dairy alone generates one in every four New Zealand export dollars – the issue of how to reduce those emissions while protecting the industry is “existential” for New Zealand, says Prof Campbell.
For farmers, voting with their pockets, and delaying pricing make sense in the short term. “The slower it happens for many farmers, the easier they’ll breathe,” says Bryan Gibson, the editor of trade publication Farmers Weekly.
From one crisis to another
Rebecca Greaves, a sheep and beef farmer from Pongaroa, Tararua, is only just recovering from this year’s floods: she was heavily affected by Cyclone Gabrielle in February. The cyclone, New Zealand’s worst in a century, tipped the country into recession in June. Now, she says, her community is more focused on how to stay safe when they have no power, or the roads are closed or flooded, than on reducing emissions: there is only so much a person can do in a day.
“We get on top of one thing and the next comes along – it feels endless.”
This is why, as candidates vie for support locally, the libertarian Act party, which boasts that it was the only party to oppose the Zero Carbon Act, is standing out. According to recent polls, Act is at 10.3%, which could put it on track to form a coalition with National.
Andrew Hoggard, the former chair of advocacy group Federated Farmers and fifth on Act’s party list, said something recently that resonated with Greaves: that farming used to be fun, and he wanted to make it fun again.
In the sale yard auction room, as auctioneers’ rapid-fire chants competed with the moos from the pens of cattle on display below, people weren’t sure who would get their vote – but they knew who wouldn’t.
One woman said, “Not for Act!” then paused, and added, “Actually, more importantly, not for Labour.” Her husband agreed: “Not for Labour.” Three people said National; “probably not red or blue,” said another. And one said, “It will be Winston [Peters], [David] Seymour or [Christopher] Luxon” – ruling out the leftwing Labour, Greens and Maori candidates.
“If Jacinda was here right now,” said one man, “She’d have to watch out.”
Prof Levine says: “The political tide that came in for Labour during 2020, in full force at the time of the election, has well and truly gone out.”
‘Everyone’s talking El Niño’
Whether they are for or against pricing agriculture emissions, the impacts of climate change are influencing farmers’ decisions daily.
At the sale yards, more farmers than usual were selling their stock before the grass dried and feeding their animals became more expensive – and before buyers bought what they needed and dropped out of the market.
“People obviously have been learning from past years and have gone” ‘OK, it’s probably time to get rid of cattle a little earlier’,” says Suz Bremner, a senior analyst at analysis firm Agri HQ.
Compared to five-year averages, there has been a “significant” difference in the volume of cattle being sold in recent weeks – significantly higher than usual – says Bremner, and in the last week, prices have started to drop as buyers stock up and leave the market.
“This year might actually be a good example of people actually going ‘OK, it’s climate change’,” Bremner says.
“Everyone’s talking dry at the moment, talking El Niño,” says Campbell Harding, a senior livestock agent, as he stands in an office at the sale yards. “Guys are looking to grab the money while it’s there”.
