DairyNZ chief executive Tim Mackle said the farming sector is committed to working constructively with government and Maori to make real change to reduce farm-level emissions. But it also recognised that it could take five years to implement a farm-level scheme of levies and rebates - hence the proposed collection through processors in the interim. Shaw welcomed the "historic consensus" across the rural sector for farm-level emissions pricing by 2025, but acknowledged the challenge charting the next steps. Introducing farm-level emissions pricing will require "a significant amount of infrastructure that needs to get laid down across tens of thousands of farms,' he said. That money would go into an Agricultural Emissions Fund to pay for programmes to help farmers reduce emissions.

Source: Otago Daily Times July 16, 2019 02:48 UTC