Agriculture Minister David Carter gave that assurance to Federated Farmers' annual meeting in Invercargill, saying he agreed with the federation's concerns that at no point should agriculture and its subsequent exports be financially disadvantaged.
"I give you an assurance that agriculture will not come in to the emissions trading scheme (ETS) in 2015 if our major trading partners do not take steps to address their emissions."
The ETS has been a flashpoint between the federation and farmers, and Mr Carter came in for some hostility at the meeting, but he told farmers that buyers of our produce expected New Zealand to take climate change seriously.
"Customers around the world expect New Zealand to take climate change seriously and if we don't, they may shun buying our products. It will also be a point of difference."
Energy, fuel and industry come under the ETS from July 1 and agriculture in full from 2015, but Mr Carter said there would be two Government reviews of the policy before then, with the first legislated for next year.
"Whether you like it or not, whether you believe the ETS will help climate change or not, the reality is that the ETS legislation has been passed by all but five votes in Parliament."
He said the world was concerned about climate change.
The giant supermarket Marks and Spencer wants to be the most sustainable retailer by 2015, Tesco aimed to be carbon neutral by 2050 and Walmart to eliminate 20 tonnes of greenhouse gas from its global supply chain by 2015.
Mr Carter said the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry was recently asked by a Chinese furniture maker for verification that the New Zealand timber it used was legally and sustainably logged.
Labour leader Phil Goff told farmers a Labour government would repeal the ETS and replace it with a scheme he said would place higher costs on polluters and less on taxpayers, while also encouraging investment in technology to reduce emissions.
He said the Government's scheme was unaffordable because subsidies provided little incentive for polluters to reduce emissions but lumped costs on taxpayers.
Mr Goff said from his experience as a trade minister, lobbyists would use anything to keep New Zealand products out of their markets, and farmers could not ignore the impact of their emissions on climate change.
