I’ve been reflecting this Fieldays week on how much the dial has shifted in farming and emissions.

We had Chris Hipkins on the Herald Now programme Tuesday admit they essentially don’t currently have a policy in putting agriculture into the ETS. 

It was a signature policy platform under Ardern. We had to do it, they told us. It was immoral not to. 

Farmers had to pay a higher price, and who cares if it’s CO2 or methane, emissions are emissions. 

Labour’s now open to ditching that altogether and softening its tone on farmers.

This is happening for two reasons.

1. People are alive to the fact that without our strong agriculture export prices, our regions would feel a lot more our main centres right now: economically depressed and limping along. Actually, selling a bunch of stuff we already know how to do well is exactly what a small trading nation likes ours should be doing.

2. The Government has successfully changed the narrative on emissions, basically through repetition: our farmers are the most efficient in the world. The world demands meat and dairy.

If we cut back and burn the farmers, bite the hand that feeds our regional economies, somebody else meets that global demand with, you guessed it, higher emitting meat and dairy products. 

So for reasons of basic economics and political reality, the dial has been shifted in farming and emissions. 

Labour’s a little late to the party, but at least acknowledging the landscape has well and truly changed. 

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