INSIDE THIS ISSUE: Hororata Highland Games
2
Rural Women NZ Awards
3
Selwyn Fireworks
3
Stories From The Grave
4
Nicola Grigg - Opinion Piece
4
Te Huanui Exhibition
5
Hororata Parish Spring Fair
5
Legal Quarrel
6
Rewi Alley 125th Anniversary
7
Annual Clothes Swap
8
Popular Repair Café Event
8
Terrace Station Spring Glory
9
Malvern U3A Update
9
Emissions Pricing Consultation 10 Darfield Gun Club
11
Greendale Cricket
12
Sports Notices
12
Young Achievers Award
13
Selwyn Youth Council
13
Public Notices
13
Save The Date
13
Classified
13-15
Trades
15-16
Email Column
16
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On Thursday, October 20th, a wide variety of people from all over the country, participated in the protest 'We're Not Going To Take It'. Christchurch attracted protesters from around Canterbury with convoys from the West Coast, including Hokitika and Greymouth, coming through Darfield and meeting up with locals, as well as vehicles from Timaru, Ashburton, Rolleston, Oxford, Amberly, Rangiora and surrounding areas. The event was organised by Groundswell, an advocacy group for farming and rural communities in New Zealand, protesting against the Government's new scheme proposing to price agricultural emissions. Recently, a consultation document was released proposing GST registered farmers and growers who meet certain livestock and fertiliser use thresholds, will have to pay levies on emissions from 2025. According to Government, the proposal is an important step forward in New Zealand's transition to a low emissions future and delivers on our promise to price agriculture emissions from 2025. Apparently farmers will benefit from the country becoming the first to develop a system for pricing agricultural emissions, by gaining price premiums and boosting export earnings. Groundswell doesn’t agree and is extremely concerned that tax on emissions will lead to food scarcity, higher food prices, and more land going into pine trees, leading to poor outcomes for rural communities and rural businesses. These emission taxes will have a negative effect on all New Zealanders and will affect food prices, as the Farming Tax will
drive food production offshore to less efficient, foreign farmers and will have a huge impact on the viability of rural communities. While Groundswell supports a focus on reducing farm emissions, it is against the levy and is pushing for emission reductions through integrated environmental actions on farms. “New Zealand farmers are the most sustainable food producers in the world, as verified by independent research. Not only will the Farming Tax reduce sheep, beef and deer production by 20% and dairy production by 6%, it will then barely affect global emissions, as most of the reduction in New Zealand’s emissions will just be replaced by less efficient foreign farmers, jumping into our share of the market.” commented a Groundswell spokesperson. Local farmer and part of the Darfield Groundswell group, Derek Bull said, “The Government's new proposal is ridiculous. I think we're all contributing to emissions and agriculture's had its share, but we've been improving for many years with riparian planting, and whether it's making a difference, I don't know. “Situated at the end of the world, we're less than a quarter
ISSUE 1,060 Friday 28th October 2022
of a percent of the emissions worldwide, even if we took New Zealand clean off the world map, it won't change much,” Derek concluded. Local farm contractor, Dean Jenkins said, “New Zealand is too small of a country to fix the climate change issues facing the world. We're just cutting our throats at the end of the day. It's just ridiculous what they are trying to put in place and it will
have a massive trickle-down effect for everyone. “I think the Government really needs to look closely at the situation, and see that currently the on-farm cost is just huge. “If you think the price of groceries is bad currently, it's only going to continue to get worse under these new proposed measures. The reality is, we are in dire straits,” Dean concluded.