Northland farmer Roger Ludbrook reckons if he planted his 400-hectare sheep and beef farm in pine trees he would get "$1.6 million a year for sitting on my bum doing nothing."
The money would come from selling carbon credits.
But Roger says he won't do that.
Photo: Carol Stiles
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He will, however, plant 45 hectares in pines because the money he earns off the carbon credits will give him an income stream to offset the agricultural emissions tax he'll have to pay to farm in future.
Roger says planting trees saddens him immensely.
He currently farms 900 bulls, 100 breeding cows and 490 Wiltshire sheep. Putting pine trees on 45 hectares means dropping cow numbers by 60 percent.
"That means 60 calves not born on farm ... it's about a quarter of a day's kill at AFFCO that's going to be disappearing, it's two unit-loads of stock trucks that won't be coming onto the farm to pick the calves up anymore when we sell them. It's cattle not going into the yards. It's cattle disappearing from Northland forever."
And with them, he says, go jobs. Planting up land with trees will "crush" rural communities.
He says New Zealand efficiently produces protein with a lower carbon footprint than most.
"And, as we drop our production, that production will be picked up by other countries and the amount of carbon that gets produced into the world, per kilo of protein that gets produced, will actually increase."
What's good about that, he ruminates.