Federated Farmers Southland vice president Bernadette Hunt, speaking at a meeting about the Government’s controversial farming emissions’ proposal and winter grazing regulations at Stadium Southland on Wednesday night, said consents were supposed to place extra scrutiny where the highest risks were.
But if thousands of people had to get them for an activity, it was not targeting the highest risk.
“That’ll mean councils can’t adequately check them out in advance or enforce them so it makes a mockery of the process. You’ll pay for a piece of paper but there’s nothing behind it, and that’s why we don’t support these ones,” she said.
The Government legislation was shoddy and was not ready to go which was why she would not be getting a consent for winter grazing, she said.
She was not asking everyone to boycott the consents, saying it was each individual’s choice, but suggested there would be safety in numbers.
“They can’t prosecute us all.”
She asked the hundreds of people at the meeting to stand with her in boycotting the consents and almost all did.
Hunt made of point of saying the Feds would not defend farmers who operated without regard for animal or environmental welfare.
Also at the meeting, Federated Farmers said they would not support the Government’s controversial farming emissions’ proposal and were seeking an alterative.
The Government this month released its consultation document on He Waka Eke Noa, which will see farmers pay for emissions from 2025 in a scheme set to be signed off by the Cabinet early next year.
Federated Farmers called a meeting at Stadium Southland in Invercargill, with its national leaders indicating the Government proposal was so far away from the original principals of He Waka Eke Noa that it couldn’t support it.
The Feds said the policy would reduce sheep, beef and venison production in New Zealand by 29% and dairy farming by 5.3% so could not support it, its leaders said during the meeting.
Federated Farmers national president Andrew Hoggard said there needed to be a review of the targets.
A major concern of the Feds was the Government committing to a 10% reduction in methane emissions from agriculture by 2030, but the Feds wanted it to be a “realistic target” of a 10% reduction by 2050.
He wanted a review of the Government’s targets, arguing the 10% proposed reduction by 2030 was not science based, and said farmers had to be proud of their low footprint per kilogram of product which ranked New Zealand the best in the world.
The Feds wanted revised targets based on science, the crowd was told.
Hoggard said a survey had shown the public was behind farmers on the issue, with a poll showing 57% of respondents said no when asked if New Zealand should price agricultural emissions before other countries did.
The Federated Farmers protest follows Groundswell NZ organising a “we’re not going to take it” protest in relation to the same issue last week.
Hundreds of tractors were driven into cities across New Zealand. One of those Invercargill protesters, dairy farmer Daryl Swney, said the Government’s new farm emissions’ proposal would cost him $150,000 a year. He did not know how farmers would survive the cost, alongside other regulations.
