"This is our nuclear moment for farming."
Groundswell New Zealand co-founder Bryce McKenzie was referring to the world-first scheme that will require farmers to pay for agricultural emissions in some form by 2025 which went out for consultation this week.
Yesterday, Mr McKenzie confirmed the rural group was planning another national protest which would be run along similar lines to its Howl of a Protest event in July last year — which involved convoys of thousands of tractors and utes — and then the Mother of All Protests four months later.
Since the Government’s emissions announcement on Tuesday, phones had been ringing red hot and the protest would be held "in the very near future", the West Otago farmer said.
"The feeling is really strong, people all over New Zealand are contacting us, saying ‘what are you doing?’ They just want for us to go [ahead]," he said.
While Mr McKenzie acknowledged it was a busy time of year on-farm, he was confident of a good turnout saying "if we don’t get a say in what’s happening now, that stuff is going to be irrelevant".
"People are ready to go, they’ve just had enough."
While not necessarily surprised by the announcement, he was still "gutted" by it.
"The first thing you get hit with is a feeling of uselessness ... in a position of a hopeless situation," he said.
There had been one thing after another from the Government — "it just keeps coming and coming" — and some farmers would be forced to give up farming.
A report from ANZ said the decreases in agricultural production resulting from the proposal could be as great as 9.8% for milk solids, 23.6% for lamb and 65.4% for beef, depending on the scenario.
The arable, horticulture and forestry sectors were expected to benefit from the proposals due to land-use change.
Various factors, combined with the high carbon price, would continue to incentivise land-use change towards planting trees that could generate carbon credits, particularly pine trees.
Unfortunately, any policies that encouraged small areas of land to be planted in trees, which could help to keep the more productive parts of farms producing food and fibre, were yet to be seen, the report said.
Westpac senior agri-economist Nathan Penny said imposing charges on agriculture emissions — particularly for sheep and beef farmers — would end up costing consumers.
"This will mean higher food prices. There is no free lunch for this policy — it will mean higher meat and dairy prices. Invariably, those costs will end up with household consumers," Mr Penny said.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has described it as a "pragmatic proposal" that would reduce agricultural emissions while making produce more sustainable and enhancing the "export brand".
- Additional reporting The New Zealand Herald
