What might the Government’s proposed changes to the HWEN pricing proposal mean for arable?
The Government has released its formal response to the GHG pricing recommendations put forward by He Waka Eke Noa earlier this year. They have accepted many of those recommendations, including the need for a farm-level split-gas pricing system rather than including agricultural emissions in the New Zealand Emissions Trading Scheme (NZETS). They also propose to adopt HWEN’s recommendations on revenue recycling and providing incentives for uptake of new emissions-reducing technologies. However, their current consultation document suggests a number of key changes, some of which could have significant impacts on the arable industry.
We are particularly concerned about their proposal to include organic N in the pricing process, and will be do our best to get this removed. We also have concerns around how proposed ‘transition payments’ would work, and will be seeking further information on this issue.
HWEN has put together a document outlining the key changes between their original proposal and the one currently up for consultation. The table is colour coded to show where changes have or have not been made…i.e. green for no change, yellow for minor changed red for major change.
FAR has worked through this document and added commentary from an arable-specific perspective.
We advise all arable growers to submit as part of this consultation. Details on how to do so can be found on the Ministry for the Environment’s website.
All consultation documents as well as information on how to be join online Q&A sessions for farmers, growers and rural communities can be found here.