Supporting farmers to reduce on-farm emissions
New Zealand farmers are some of the world's most emissions-efficient producers of meat and dairy.
The agriculture sector has an important role to play in meeting our climate change obligations.
To support the reduction of emissions on farms, we’re investing in the development of tools and technology.
A standard way to estimate emissions
Farmers can’t manage what they can’t measure. We are working with the sector to develop a standard way to estimate a farm's agricultural greenhouse gas emissions. This is to ensure:
- transparency
- consistency
- robustness
- fairness.
The standard methodology is expected to be released in late 2024.
Benefits of a standard methodology
Currently, there are more than 10 emissions calculators, all using different methods to estimate emissions.
We expect our standard methodology to be used by existing emissions calculators and farm management tools.
Having a standard method:
- is a critical part in supporting farmers to understand the main drivers of emissions and ways to reduce them
- provides an opportunity to enhance the credibility of sustainability claims made by our food and fibre exporters
- would enable new products and features that improve farm management and reporting.
A step towards measurement
Standardising estimation is a key step towards pricing emissions in the future and will support on-farm emissions measurement by 2025.
The first version of the methodology will include current science. New technologies will be added to annual updates as they become available.
Technical oversight
A Technical Advisory Group (TAG) has supported the development of the standardised methodology and its scientific validity.
Sector leaders helped to set up the group.
