Letter to the Editor from Neville W 18 June 2010

Why the Emissions scheme is not justified!

 From a farmer’s perspective

Dear Sir

I must put the farming community’s perspective forward in reply to Chester Borrows article in the “South Taranaki Star” Thursday 17 June.

The present Government doesn’t value farming to the extent when one compares new money going into Cycle ways, Rugby World Cup, Ring roads around Auckland and Tourism, The investments in farming is peanuts. Chester speaks of massive amounts of money going into research technology but zilch into agriculture. I hear of research into clover production/ manipulation that will not be commercially available to farming until 2020. That is far too far into the future. I have heard speakers from Ag-research talking of the various strategies of reducing farming emissions. To date none have been viable and the outlook looks like there are no alternatives; watch this space!

Trade responsibility is spoken of as the reason why we are going to have an ETS; but Chester, if you want us to believe this, you had better come up with some meaningful long term contracts to provide indisputable evidence that this is the case. In other words put your money where your mouth is!

All farmers want from the Government is the animal emissions removed from the offending legislation. Horses and the horse racing industry are not included in animal emissions, or is this because there are many politicians involved in the racing industry?

We have been living with carbon dioxide for the last two thousand and nine years and no one has died from it. Methane is also released from forest floors not mention coalmines. Remember how miners kept canaries in the mines to detect gas? When the canary died it was time for the miners to evacuate the mine due to methane, and no one dared light up a smoke. With thousands of lightning strikes around the globe I don’t see methane as a problem.

If rising co2 is a problem then this must surely be nature’s way of improving growing conditions worldwide. Remember that growers of glasshouse vegetables have a co2 level about twice what we now have to increase plant growth. All vegetation sequesters co2 and would be a good variation combined with trees. New Zealand needs to grow more food for an ever increasing population at the rate of a million more people every week. Even the Australians are now eating NZ lamb. Australia may have vast mineral wealth but have very little water to do substantial irrigation.

This year the Hawke’s Bay area had more rain than normal. They were able to farm their lambs longer for heavier weights and put money into the community. A proposed irrigation scheme in the Waiarapa has estimated that there would another 14,000 jobs created!

 This proves to me that we as a nation should be putting more resource into irrigation and doing it, not talking about it! Any two major waterways in NZ would probably be the total of Australia’s available water! This is New Zealand’s wealth, water, and it shouldn’t be given away cheaply!

This is a tangible suggestion Chester, one I believe would add to the NZ economy. Hungry people will need feeding; and you will not feed them on carbon credits alone.

In closing I enclose a quote from Don Nicolson “this nation was built with men in boots not men in suits”,,

N J W