The agritech sector is calling for farmers to be financially rewarded for adopting methane-reducing technologies.
Their comments come after earlier warnings from industry groups and the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, who have said that without penalties or incentives, farmers have little motivation to invest in some of these tools.
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts said the government would collaborate with farmers to “maximise the emissions reduction innovation underway,” but declined to say whether it was considering subsidies or other incentives.
Last year, the government abandoned its earlier proposal to introduce a tax on agricultural methane by 2030 and also lowered the country’s 2050 methane emissions reduction target.
It instead adopted a market- and industry-led approach, with Watts saying that broad adoption of new mitigation tools would be “critical.”
The government-industry partnership AgriZeroNZ has invested $78 million to date in developing methane-reducing technologies, including vaccines and genetic solutions. Some options, including low-methane sheep genetic selection and effluent pond treatments, are already available, while others remain in the early stages of development.
AgriZeroNZ chief executive Wayne McNee said that some of the technologies also deliver commercial benefits, as they can improve animal productivity. However, many, such as a methane-inhibiting capsule, or “bolus,” being developed by New Zealand company Ruminant Biotech, do not offer the same commercial benefits.
“In the absence of productivity improvement, which is often quite hard to prove, there will need to be an incentive,” he said.
McNee said that some incentives are already in place for dairy farmers with the lowest emissions. He said that wider adoption would require farmers to have a clear incentive to use them.
“If there’s a productivity improvement, great; that’ll be a key driver. If there’s not, there’ll need to be some sort of payment to the farmer to take the technology up.”
Other countries have relied on direct subsidies or voluntary carbon markets.
AgriZeroNZ said it is “looking at all options.”
“It’s part of our role to get the tools available, but also part of our role to work with farmers and others to get them used.”