Russel Norman

The dairy sector and emissions

Published: September 30, 2007

by Russel Norman

Rod Oram has another good article on climate change in today’s Sunday Star Times,  this time engaging in the argument over whether dairy can reduce its emissions and whether it will make money or cost money.

The basic argument is around the role of nitrification inhibitors. Nitrous oxide from fertilisier and urine is about a third of agricultural greenhouse emissions. Nitrification inhibitors such as eco-n being promoted by Ravensdown decrease the breakdown of the fertiliser into nitrous oxide (greenhouse gas) and nitrates (which pollute wateways). In the process they not only reduce greenhouse emissions and waterway pollution, but they also make more nitrogen available to the grass and you get better pasture growth. Nitrification inhibitors are already being used by a significant minority of farmers in some places.

The Sustainablity Council put out a report in June on the measures which agriculture can take to reduce emissions which focussed on nitrification inhibitors but covered other aspects such as stand-off pads in winter. They argued that we could reduce emissions by 3.7 Mt CO2e per year by the widespread use of nitrification inhibitors. That’s a significant reduction.

There are some outstanding questions. There remain questions over how well this works in wet soils, though Ravensdown and others claim the evidence is compelling. There are also questions as to the impact on soil bacteria and hence soil health - eco-n works by stopping bacteria processing the nitrogen. This will be an ongoing concern for the green movement and will need to be watched closely.

Federated Farmers is willfully ignoring this evidence in claiming that there’s nothing farmers can do to reduce emissions so they shouldn’t face a price – the taxpayer should subsidise the sector (I put out a report estimating the cost to the taxpayer at $1.2billion over the Kyoto period). However, other players such as Fonterra seem to be a bit more switched on to the issue.

The financial spin-offs are three-fold. Eventually dairy will face some kind of price on their emissions so finding a way to reduce emissions now is in their long term interest. Secondly, nitrificaiton inhibitors do seem to increase pasture growth. Thirdly, consumers are becomingly increasingly concerned about climate change and anything producers can do to reduce their emissions will have market advantages.

And then there’s the advantages of reduced greenhouse emissions….

Published in Environment & Resource Management by Russel Norman on Sun, September 30th, 2007   

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