Dairy cows are major contributors to NZ's greenhouse gas emissions. Photo: Adam Simpson
A Treasury letter shows funding for a research programme to help farmers reduce agricultural emissions has been cut by $48 million.
When a proposed law change to keep agriculture out of the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS)passed its first reading in June, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts vowed to spend more than $400 million on a fund to "accelerate the commercialisation of tools and technology to reduce on-farm emissions".
But although one programme within that fund was getting more money, the overall size of the fund had shrunk.
An Official Information Act response by Treasury to the Green Party showed the fund was cut twice after being established in 2022: first by $30 million in August 2023, by the previous Labour government, then again in this year's Budget, when the current government reduced it by another $48 million.
The fund now stood at $419 million.
In June, the government's commitment to the fund was highlighted in a press release about the government pulling agriculture out of New Zealand's emissions pricing scheme - a campaign promise to farmers by members of the Coalition.
The government has been criticised for its decision to delay the date when farmers pay for some of their planet-heating gases.
Methane and nitrous oxide gases from dairy, beef and sheep make up almost half the country's emissions profile but producers do not pay for these emissions the way emitters of carbon dioxide from vehicles and factories do.
Farmers argue they do not have as much climate-friendly technology at their disposal to address their heating impact, compared to those industries.
Last week Climate Change Minister Simon Watts told RNZ's Focus on Politics programme the government was taking a "technology led approach" to battling emissions from agriculture and the solutions would come from innovation.
"We've put additional funding into research and development and innovation," he said.
The current government had, however, increased funding allocated to one of the projects within the fund.
The New Zealand Agricultural Greenhouse Gas Research Centre in Palmerston North received an extra $50.5 million over five years, according to Agriculture Minister Todd McClay, taking its total funding over five years to $149 million.
The centre is the hub for some of the highest-profile agricultural climate science - for example, the search for a methane-quashing vaccine that could be administered to dairy cows.
"Additional" or "further" funding?
Research shows farming gases can be lowered with techniques such as more precise use of fertiliser and different combinations of animal feeds.
Market-driven shifts away from sheep and beef, planting marginal land, and more efficient and productive cows have also lowered emissions in various farming sectors.
But the big, double-digit gains the government is looking for will require a breakthrough such as a methane vaccine for cows or a methane-lowering feed additive that works in grazing animals.
Watts recently told journalists that if "even one of those comes off" New Zealand's prospects of meeting its emissions budgets in the future look vastly more comfortable.
The $400 million fund is the latest iteration in over a decade of government funding to find and roll out methods and tools that shrink animals' methane and nitrous oxide output, such as successful efforts at breeding low-methane sheep, and planting more diverse crops.
Watts has used this investment in research and innovation to deflect questions about delaying emissions pricing, a move which government projections show made it harder to meet New Zealand's long-term climate targets unless other sectors do more. The Government says pricing emissions now would reduce farming and drive production overseas - so the answer is finding new technology first.
The government's June press release about pulling agriculture out of New Zealand's emissions pricing scheme said the government was "investing further in R&D to develop practical tools to help lower on-farm emissions while protecting production."
Watts was quoted in that release as saying: "the government has committed $400 million over the next four years to accelerate the commercialisation of tools and technology to reduce on-farm emissions."
He also said: "As part of our commitment to the sector, we are scaling up funding for the New Zealand Agricultural Greenhouse Gas Research Centre where an additional $50.5 million will be invested over the next five years in projects to find solutions to reduce the sectors emissions."
Treasury's letter confirmed that the $400 million pool being referred to was the Accelerating New Mitigations Programme, which includes the New Zealand Agricultural Greenhouse Gas Research Centre.
RNZ asked Watts:
- What he meant by "further" funding and what the additional $50.5 million was additional to.
- To respond to criticism by the Green Party that, although the government was emphasising funding for greenhouse gas reduction in agriculture when asked about the impacts of delaying agricultural emissions pricing, funding for this research was originally set up by Labour and had actually been cut in this year's Budget.
Watts' office referred questions to Agriculture Minister Todd McClay.
Both Ministers are overseas this week.
McClay's office replied: "The government is scaling up funding for the NZAGRC with an additional $50.5 million newly allocated over the next five years on top of the current annual funding of $15.7 million."
It later clarified that the newly allocated funding was re-shuffled from within the $400 million fund.
"Maths not mathing"
Green Party co-leader Chloe Swarbrick says the "maths are not mathing" in the government's claims.
"It's pretty clear that the approximately $400 million fund that the government keeps waving around....is in fact funding that was committed to under the last government in 2022, and even worse than that, it's a fund that they cut funding from."
"It makes sense for the there to be investment in research and innovation and development. We are always going to back there being more research in the space of climate change," she said.
"But we also have to realise that we are grappling ...with the hard scientific fundamentals for life on earth as we know it and we have to go with what we know works."
"We have been having this debate about pricing in the agricultural sector for two decades."