Article Three: Pine and Pasture - Friends with Benefits
The AgriBusiness Group is running a three-part article series on carbon farming in New Zealand to educate hill country farmers about the carbon farming opportunities that enable them to unlock the full economic and environmental potential of their farm systems. Sam shares how hill country farmers can use pine forestry to optimise their farming business and do right by the environment.
Farmers undertaking or allowing forestry restoration, regeneration or new application are in an excellent position to capitalise on the economic, environmental, and ecological values forestry brings. This article provides insight on the relationship between forestry and farming, how this might apply to your farm system, the economics around farm forestry, and the role of natives and exotics in this current climate.
Introduction
“Radiata pine” – two words that have evolved to become somewhat distasteful within rural conversations over the last few years. Understandably, the threat of good, productive farming landscapes being sold to foresters is a concern for the rural industry - the negative hype around forestry across the board has generated unnecessary collateral on the farm forestry sector, creating fear in farmers wanting to integrate forestry. In effect, reducing business opportunities and stifling the fight to combat climate change. Under the right advice, farmers are capitalising on land use diversification utilising integrated forestry where it fits in with their farm system. From my experience, these are our red meat farming clients with the strongest farming businesses of the future.
Figure 1: Radiata pine forest stand in Canterbury (Rural HQ, 2019)
The Farming and Forestry Relationship
Within New Zealand agriculture, diversification of revenue inputs generates resilience. By multiplying the level of revenue inputs in a business we reduce the risk of relying on linear prices and commodities that rise and fall with market status. For the hill country farmer with marginalised farmland, the current opportunity for pine forestry to act as that additional economic diversification with carbon and timber is significant.
With land use change comes the added sustainability benefits that forestry naturally as a land use brings - outweighing pastoral farming. Benefits include: reduced carbon emissions, reduced nutrient outputs, reduced erosion and sediment deposition, and increased biodiversity. Although exotic plantation forestry is not competitive with the rich biodiversity associated with native forestry it still has significant value. Recent research [1] has provided a foundation of evidence to suggest that biodiversity is more abundant within plantation forestry in New Zealand than is credited or perceived, which is more robust than anecdotal media claims (e.g. claims of pine ‘dead zones’, monocultural diversity, and soil acidification). A middle ground between pasture and native if you will.
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[1] Pawson, S. M., Ecroyd, C. E., Seaton, R., Shaw, W. B., & Brockerhoff, E. G. (2010). New Zealand's exotic plantation forests as habitats for threatened indigenous species. New Zealand Journal of Ecology, 342-355
Figure 2: 30ha of LUC 7 farmland in Canterbury that is erosion prone and of poor farming quality yet excellent for pine forestry (Mander, 2021).
Cash is King - How Pine Stacks Up
Table 1 and Table 2 below are actual economic measures of a permanent and production forest model for a farm in Canterbury at the current carbon price ($50/tonne/CO2) and at estimated average timber revenue for a farm within 150km of a port[2]. Permanent being a carbon forest only and production being carbon and timber.
Table 1: Net economic measures for a permanent radiata pine forest in Canterbury at the current carbon price over 60 years, 2021.
Table 2: Net economic measures for a production radiata pine forest in Canterbury at the current carbon price and average timber prices using the averaging carbon model over 60 years, 2021.
Pine over native - sounds crazy?
The Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change Commission (IPCC) Sixth Amendment 2021 report sends a clear message that we are now down to just decades to remove and reduce carbon emissions from the atmosphere. Failure to take action will result in severe climate ramifications: heatwaves, heavy precipitation, agricultural and ecological droughts, tropical cyclones, reductions in Arctic Sea ice, snow cover and permafrost [3].
The evidence supports utilisation of fast-sequestering rates of exotics to achieve 2030 Paris agreement reductions in New Zealand. I believe we need to continue encouraging natives in areas where they are naturally regenerating and on sites of ecological significance (e.g. waterways. However, new exotic forest sites with species like pine on marginal land provides the only immediate solution to achieve those targets and rectify the effects of climate change for a sustained farming future. It just so happens to be this method is also economically attractive for farmers - a win-win scenario.
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[2] Forest Management Limited; Timber revenue figures Canterbury, $35K/ha EBIT, 2021.
[3]IPCC, 2021: Summary for Policymakers. In: Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of
Working Group I to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Masson- et al
Cambridge University Press. In Press
Figure 4: Predicted carbon sequestration rates of pine and native forest types on average sites in New Zealand (Tane’s Tree Trust, 2014).
Radiata pine is a genetically modified tree in New Zealand that has had its genome optimised by scientists over the years to become the ultimate carbon sequestering and timber yielding crop; fast growing, adaptable, and resilient. Figure 4 illustrates the competitive reality of how radiata pine supersedes the quantity and efficiency of carbon sequestration when compared to the fastest sequestering New Zealand native species. There is a compelling argument that over the course of the next decade, attention to climate change should have precedence over biodiversity so that there is a future for biodiversity to exist.
The Bright Future – Indigenous Natives
The permanent pine forest model presents an opportunity of using pine as an acting nurse crop for future native regeneration. Research from leading local forestry ecologist, Dr. Adam Forbes, suggests the opportunity for this is significant if the forest is managed accordingly, but only really feasible for forests that are not of large scale (e.g. >500ha) due to the active management requirements that become unachievable with scale[4]. This works well with our theory of fragmented forestry on a large proportion on hill country farms when forests are in a permanent scenario.
The outcome of this opportunity also fits well with the requirement to plant more exotics now to quickly sequester carbon out of the atmosphere to reduce implications for climate change, while stratergising the long-term desire of more indigenous forest land establishment for the future of enhancing New Zealand’s biodiversity. _____________________________
[4] https://pureadvantage.org/transitioning-plantations-to-native-forest/
Figure 5: Native seedlings regenerating in a radiata pine plantation through light wells (Forbes, 2020).
Figure 6: Naturally regenerating indigenous forest land in Canterbury where carbon credits can be earned (Mander, 2021).
Naturally reverting native forestry where there is an abundance of seed sources and dispersion potential are the areas of native that should also be encouraged for their continual establishment where applicable. More on this here: https://www.agribusinessgroup.com/news/carbon-farming-native-forests
Establishing new native forest land, such as riparian plantings, is important to continue the maintenance of biodiversity and freshwater quality, however, these areas will be insignificant for climate change mitigation.
Any comments or questions? Leave them in the comment box below or contact Sam directly on 027 305 8549. If you are considering integrating native forests into your farm system and would like more information check out this page and get in contact with Sam via email or phone.
Article written by Sam Mander
