farming

Hotspots hit poor hardest

by Bryan Walker June 4, 2011

Another report this week drives home the message that the world’s poorer people are going to suffer the early and potentially devastating effects of climate change. The report is the work of the Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) programme associated with the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), a group of food [...]

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Self-interested, myopic hot-air

by Gareth September 26, 2009

New Zealand’s farming leadership have not distinguished themselves in the debate about climate policy. Federated Farmers president Don Nicholson has called for NZ to set no target for emissions reductions and for agriculture to be excluded from the emissions trading scheme, and former vice-president Frank Brenmuhl is still ruminating on the need for more debate [...]

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Why did Nick Smith hide the facts on forestry?

by Gareth August 21, 2009

Government ministers have deliberately played down the role of forestry in meeting emissions targets, documents released under the Official Information Act suggest. Diligent digging at No Right Turn has uncovered a Ministry of Agriculture & Forestry paper [PDF] titled New forest planting and harvesting intentions under high carbon prices, which makes clear that forest planting [...]

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The size of a cow

by Gareth August 12, 2009

NZ’s farming leadership remains in denial about the need for action on climate change, as a remarkable speech [full text, Stuff report] by Federated Farmers president Don Nicolson demonstrates. Addressing the Plant Protection Society’s annual conference in Dunedin yesterday, Nicholson took swipes at Keisha Castle-Hughes, Greenpeace and the Green Party: It’s not the reality that [...]

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Farming carbon: part of the solution?

by Bryan Walker July 15, 2009

This column was published in the Waikato Times on July 14 Could New Zealand agriculture be part of the solution to climate change?  We know all too well that it is part of the problem – and that’s not an accusation, by the way, just a recognition.  But problems are there to be tackled, and [...]

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