Federated Farmers have put up a billboard in Wellington claiming "sheep are not the problem". Photo: Supplied
Sheep farmers have stepped up their campaign against the government's reliance on planting pine trees to offset emissions.
Under the existing Emissions Trading Scheme, planting pine trees for carbon credits is causing land to be repurposed, as it is generally more profitable to plant pine trees than to farm sheep.
Parliament's own environment watchdog has questioned successive governments' reliance on planting trees to meet climate targets.
Now, Federated Farmers have put up a billboard in Wellington, claiming "sheep are not the problem".
Meat and Wool chair Toby Williams said farming families were being pushed off the land and it was destroying rural communities.
He said between 2017 and 2024, more than 260,000 hectares of productive sheep farming land were lost to pine trees.
The national sheep flock had reduced from more than 70 million sheep in 1982, to fewer than 25 million sheep today.
Federated Farmers wants the government to review the ETS.
The government made a series of changes to the legislation in December last year, with the goal of limiting the amount of full farm to forestry conversions.
Williams told Midday Report farmers were "really grateful" for those changes, but class 7 land - considered "non-arable" - still had no limit on how much of it could be registered within the ETS.
"Quite often what we find is people don't regard that land to be very profitable, or driving a good return, but it's where our ewes live, and our cows live. It's producing the lambs and the calves that we then process into meat," Williams said.
New Zealand is the only country in the world that allows 100 percent carbon offsetting through forestry, with other countries putting restrictions in place.
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts said in a statement: "The Federated Farmers ad campaign draws attention to a genuine concern that is shared by this Government about the impact of farm conversions on our highly productive farmland."
He said the government was on track to pass legislation that would ban full farm-to-forestry conversions by October this year, and would take effect from 4 December 2025, the date of the original announcement.
"As a government, we've been clear that we are not shutting down farms or exporting jobs and food production overseas," he said.
"That's why we are taking action so we can strike the right balance and protect the valuable land that feeds us and our economy. It will ensure our most productive farmland remains dedicated to farming."
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