Straits Times 9 Jun 08;
Farmers fear government scheme to curb livestock's methane emissions could deflate profits
WELLINGTON - NEW ZEALAND has a distressing gas problem.
Its four million people share two islands with 40 million sheep, nine million cows and more than a million farmed deer, all producing the methane that is said to be one of the worst culprits behind global warming.
Livestock farmers, long among the country's major export earners, are worried about the government's big ambitions concerning climate change.
Last year, Prime Minister Helen Clark set a national goal of becoming the world's first carbon-neutral nation.
But farmers say the cost of fighting greenhouse gases could drive many of them into bankruptcy. They feel they are being singled out because New Zealand has few big industrial polluters.
'There's no other country in the world that's so clean of chimney stacks that its animals are the biggest polluters,' said farmer Charlie Pedersen. 'It's kind of an ironic situation.'
The head of the Federated Farmers of New Zealand speaks for the owners of 14,000 farms, roughly two-thirds of the country's total.
Five years ago, farmers defeated a plan to levy a tax on each head of livestock to fund research on controlling their gas emissions. They are now rallying against a proposal to make farmers pay if they exceed government-imposed limits on greenhouse gases.
The plan could slash farmers' profits by half over the next five years, driving big exporters out of business in the middle of a global food crisis, Mr Pedersen warned.
'We're going to put our system under those costs with no opportunity to get any more from the market for our food,' he said.
Consumers want food to have all sorts of fine attributes as far as animal welfare and the environment are concerned, he said.
'But they also rely on the supermarket to bid the price down as much as possible, and give the food producer as little return as possible,' he added.
Livestock produce an estimated 20 per cent of the world's methane output, which also comes from landfill sites, coal mines and padi fields.
Methane and the even more potent nitrous oxide make up about half of the greenhouse gases that New Zealand adds to the Earth's air.
Most of them rise from pastures where sheep and cattle graze, chewing, regurgitating and chewing again, and belching out methane. Some of the gases are also produced by bacteria feeding on dung and urine.
A team of New Zealand scientists, funded by the farm industry and the government, is conducting research into possible solutions. These include genetic engineering, cloning and a vaccine for gassy animals.
'Given that we're trying to turn around hundreds of thousands of years of evolution, it's no small challenge,' said Mr Mark Aspin, manager of the Pastoral Greenhouse Gas Research Consortium.
His researchers are under new pressure to find answers. The government is the first in the world to propose that farmers be included in a plan that encourages greenhouse gas reductions by setting emission limits and forcing violators to buy carbon credits.
Farmers could go bankrupt buying carbon credits just so their livestock can keep doing what comes naturally, Mr Pedersen warned.
In the fight against global warming, farmers are unarmed, and it is up to scientists to give them the weapons they need, Mr Aspin said.
'There's a very strong ethos in New Zealand farmers,' he added. 'They do feel like they are stewards of the land. We're only here for a short time, so we have to leave it in a better state than we found it.'
LOS ANGELES TIMES
Less gas, more 'green' farm environment
Straits Times 9 Jun 08;
IF NEW ZEALAND researchers discover the secret to making livestock less belchy and flatulent, they could help make billions of farm animals around the world more environmentally friendly.
Cud-chewing farm animals produce a lot of methane because of the digestive processes in their first stomach, or rumen, where microbes break down food.
Researchers are looking for ways to inhibit or eliminate a group of microbes called methanogens, which transform rumen gases into methane.
They are studying whether low- fibre, high-sugar substitutes in the animals' diet will help the climate. Farm animals fed plants higher in tannin produce less methane, but such food costs more. Feed additives like garlic give promising results, but this does not much help animals grazing in pastures.
Breeding is another solution. Some sheep and cattle are high methane emitters, others low. If that is an inheritable trait, then genetic engineering could rid the world of gassy livestock.
Attempting to 'kick the carbon habit'
BBC News 9 Jun 08;
The stunning natural landscape defines the national character of New Zealand, so to the average inhabitant climate change must seem like a remote concern.
But Prime Minister, Helen Clark, is urging them to "kick the carbon habit" and reduce their net greenhouse gas emissions to zero.
"If the world does not tackle this problem comprehensively, we're not going to be bequeathing much of a planet to future generations," she explained.
The government's targets include:
* 90% of energy must come from renewable sources by 2025
* Cut transport emissions by 50% by 2040
* Curb emissions of the potent greenhouse gas nitrous oxide from agriculture
In the heart of the nation's wine country, a local firm called Grove Mill has embraced this call for action when it became the first company in the world to have a product certified as carbon neutral.
David Pearce, chief wine maker at Grove Mill, said there was not a simple answer to why they did it.
"We did it for a range of reasons," he told the Television Trust for the Environment's (TVE) Earth Report programme.
"We were very environmentally conscious anyway, and we still are.
"We used to fly helicopters over this vineyard for frost protection, but that's extremely high in carbon dioxide emissions."
He added that cutting out this practice probably cuts emissions by about 90%.
The company also made their wine bottles lighter, which meant less energy was needed to make glass and transport the bottles.
It also managed to cut emissions further by insulating the wine cellar rather than using air conditioning.
However, it was not possible for the company to eliminate emissions from lorries and ships used to transport the wine.
The firm decided to offset these emissions by planting trees and shrubs, which would absorb CO2 from the atmosphere.
Feel the heat
Nature has given New Zealand a head start as far as meeting its renewable energy target is concerned.
By tapping into underground volcanic heat, geothermal plants can generate almost limitless clean power.
Rivers, rapids and waterfalls are another natural feature of the nation's natural landscape that can be tapped as a source for hydro-electricity plants.
Currently, about 70% of the country's electricity is generated from these renewable sources.
The government plans to use wind power to make up the remaining 20% in order to meet the target of 90% by 2025.
One of the biggest hurdles that has to be overcome is emissions from transport. Most of the nation's cars are bought second-hand and imported from Japan.
"New Zealand has the oldest, dirtiest and least efficient car fleet in the whole of the developed world," said Jeannette Fitzsimons, co-leader of the Green Party, which is a member of the coalition government.
Environment Minister Trevor Mallard said achieving the goal of halving emissions from transport by 2040 would be a "major exercise".
"That will mean that the fleet will be modernised. We have to make a lot of progress, for example, towards electric cars."
K J Wells, leader of the electric vehicle programme of state-owned Meridian Energy, said the sector was not as clean and green as they would like.
"If we look at all the countries around the world, New Zealand is the second highest in the world for car ownership," he said.
"We've got almost one car for every man, woman and child - we think there is room for improvement."
Meridian Energy is focusing its efforts on electric cars from Japan.
"One of the things that makes New Zealand the best place in the world for electric vehicles is the fact that we have an abundance of renewable energy," he explained.
However, Meridian Energy has yet to import any electric cars, while the second-hand fossil fuel models continue to arrive from Japan.
Smell of success
Another big challenge facing New Zealand is curbing emissions from its booming agriculture industry, which is the nation's main pollution source.
"The big challenge for us is the 50% of the greenhouse gas emissions that comes from our agricultural sectors because that is the backbone of our economy," observes Helen Clark.
As a result, ministers are investing money into research on emissions from cows.
Scientists at Lincoln University are looking at ways to reduce emissions of nitrous oxide, a gas that has a global warming potential 310 times greater than carbon dioxide.
"Over half of our greenhouse gas emissions come from agriculture and of that, one-third is nitrous oxide," explained soil scientist Professor Keith Cameron.
"It comes predominantly from animal urine deposits on the pasture and on the soil."
Dr Harry Clark, an animal scientist for Ag Research, says it is a myth that flatulence from cattle and sheep is the nation's main source of methane emissions.
"They produce methane which comes from the animals' breath; and, despite the popular myth, it is not coming out of their rear ends. About 99% of the methane comes from the breath."
The scientists say that research into cutting emissions from livestock is still at an early stage.
Dr Nick Smith, the environment spokesman for the National Party of New Zealand, agreed that there was still a long way to go.
"The truth is that we are only just starting to nail the science of how to measure the amount of methane and nitrous oxide from agricultural production.
"I think it is a matter of decades rather than years before there'll be the sort of breakthroughs that enable us to bring those emissions down."
