Sustainability is the ability for something to continue to be at or above a certain rate or level. For example, for the forestry industry to remain sustainable they may need to hit certain checkpoints continuously throughout the year that could include planting twice as many trees as they cut down to maintain the percentage of forestry we have in New Zealand. Sustainability can also be used in relation to economic growth. In this context it means that an economy can continue to grow while still avoiding the overuse and depletion of natural resources to do so. Across the world, one of the most commonly used definitions of sustainable development is “meeting the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”
Sustainable Growth
In the case of the Primary Industries of new Zealand (including farming), sustainable growth focuses on making sure that the resources used for farming are being used at an acceptable rate and are being replaced at a sustainable rate, while the economy economy and industry continue to grow. For it to be sustainable, the economy needs to be able to continue to grow for an extended length of time without running out of resources or hyperinflation.
What is farming to New Zealand?
As of 30th June 2016, in New Zealand there was a total of 6.6 million dairy cattle, 27.6 million sheep, and 3.5 million beef cattle being farmed. The dairy industry is constantly growing in New Zealand and the number of cattle in New Zealand being bred for dairy went up 133,000 in one year (2015-2016). Dairy is New Zealand’s largest export and a huge contributor to our economy but it also takes a giant toll on our land and environment. It increases levels of gases, including Carbon dioxide (CO2), in the atmosphere that affects the way the earth radiates heat back out from its surface. More greenhouse gases means that more radiated heat is trapped in the atmosphere. Like a greenhouse, this warms the air, in this case around the whole earth. This is resulting in significant changes to climatic patterns that are already affecting us and could have catastrophic consequences.
According to SAFE, the main source of water pollution in New Zealand is from animal excrement. One individual cow produces 15 times more waste and organic waste than a human. This means that New Zealand’s approximant number of 6.7 million dairy cows (this number is from 2014) produce the equivalent amount of manure as 100 million people.
Dairy continues to lead our export market making it a large influencer of our economy. In 2015 it took up a total of 45% of our total exports as a country and brought in almost 12 Billion dollars. Other cattle exports were in second place with 12.4%. This means that Cattle and Dairy exports alone took up 57.4% of all New Zealand exports for the year. This shows just how much of a reliance we have on dairy and cattle, as well as our farming industry in general, and we need to make sure that we are sustainable with these things if we wish to continue growing as an economy.
United Nations – Sustainable Development goals
The United Nations have a list of 17 different sustainability goals for the world to make sure that we are keeping track of our resources and what we do with them. Their motto for this project is “Sustainable Development goals. 17 Goals to transform our world.” One of these goals is goal 13 which is to “Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts“. Sustainable farming would fall under this goal as it has a large impact on the environment. This can be through CO2 emissions or deforestation to make farming land more accessible, as well as pollution and excess Nutrient runoff into water. In new Zealand this is a very large problem as we pride ourselves on our clean waterways and fresh air but if our biggest industry is polluting these things it won’t take long for this to change.
Is it sustainable?
The 2015 Environment Aotearoa report recorded a 28 per cent surge in the land area used for dairy farming over the last 10 years. This increase in the national dairy herd is causing a corresponding increase in compaction of land (at around 80 per cent of dairy farms), pollution of waterways and greenhouse gas emissions. This is not sustainable for our country and new policies need to be put in place to control these levels of pollution and destruction of the environment otherwise the damage will reach an irreversible stage and the damage will be permanent.
Policies
One way New Zealand could stop this destruction and pollution of our land and water ways is to introduce stricter policies that would either slow production of milk or force farmers and producers to find more sustainable and environmentally friendly procedures to produce their dairy. Two of the ways this could happen could be through either the government introducing a tax on Milk Production and / or CO2 emissions, or they could put in place a law that helps regulate milk production and keeps a strict eye on the industry to make sure that all laws are being abided by and that the procedures taken while producing dairy and other products meet the laws and goals set by the government.
Both of these regulations could help slow or decrease the levels of pollution to our environments in different ways, but which would be the better option for New Zealand and how would they work?
A tax on milk production would result in less milk products being produced as production costs will have increased. Since this is an external factor the supply curve would shift towards the left and demand would also go down as a result of the increased price. The tax would result in a likely increase in the commercial selling price of dairy products as producers would try to offset the new higher production cost that the tax would bring. The money that the government collects from the tax could then be used to fund cleaning up waterways and finding cheaper and more efficient farming procedures. For example, if the original price of milk was $2 per litre, after the addition of a $1 tax, the supply curves shift up and to the left (S1). Consumers would now likely pay $2.50 per litre (P1). Sellers receive $1.50 per litre after paying the tax (Ps). So fifty cents of the tax is being paid by consumers, while the other fifty cents is paid by the milk producers (Tax can be seen as the orange colouring on the graph). That dollar of tax per litre across the industry would collect and grow into a very large amount of money as milk is produced and sold, meaning that there will now be more funding available for research into finding more sustainable ways of farming and tiding of land. The increase of price would result in less people willing to pay that much for milk or being able to afford it and as a result demand would also decrease (D1). This is the short term effects of the tax.
Although when the tax is first introduced supply will go down due to the increased production costs, when the money is put back into the farming and dairy industry the supply will start increasing again and the industry will start growing again due to more efficient productivity. This is because the money coming back into the industry will be used to fund research and development as well as tidying efforts which are likely to find more effective farming procedures.
This would also employ more people as there will now be people hired to research and find more efficient and sustainable ways to farm and produce products meaning that new jobs have been created.
Recently there has been many different experiments and lots of research done into finding ways to lower the pollution produced by livestock and farming around the world, with most of the testing being done in New Zealand. An example of this is Kiwi scientists producing an enzyme that they believe could be a permanent solution to the rising methane levels. An enzyme called the inhibitor 3-nitrooxypropanol (NOP) is currently still in controlled testing but has been giving results so far of reduced livestock methane emissions by more than one-third according to the leader of the research team.
This is a start but if there was more money put aside by the government to fund other science investigations like this one then it is likely we could find even better solutions to the problem that is growing more as time passes not only in New Zealand, but around the world too.
In the long term, this policy will end up benefiting the Dairy industry and there will begin to be growth that is now more sustainable once the money is put back into the industry through research and other means. Production will now be more efficient and affordable, as well as being more sustainable meaning there will be more sustainable growth.
The second policy that could be put in place is a policy that focuses more on stopping the pollution of the land before it happens rather than cleaning up after it has taken hold of the land like the other policy and thus is a different way of making sure that growth is sustainable in the farming industry.
Regulation of Milk and dairy production and farming would mean that all dairy producers in New Zealand would have to meet the same guidelines and laws meaning that there is essentially stricter regulations and easier ways to make sure people are being sustainable and legal with their production. This would increase production costs in the dairy and farming industry as farmers would have to change their ways of producing their products to meet the new standards. As production costs go up, the produce is no longer as profitable as it was before as the producers are now having to spend more money to get the same products and thus supply would decrease as a way to try and make sure that costs were being covered while trying to still meet demand, this can be seen as a shift to the left of the supply curve (S1). As supply goes down demand will force the price up and price will increase from the original price (P) to the new higher point of P1 and this will help farmers cover their new higher production costs, but as the price increases less people will either have the ability to pay for the same product at the new higher price or will not want to and thus demand will go down (D1).
Although this policy would actually result in a shrinkage of the dairy farming industry rather than growth, it would cause overall economic growth in the country. This is because these regulations would make the land more sustainable and usable. Other industries that use this land alongside the dairy industry, for example sheep farming or fruit growers, would now have a cleaner environment for growth and farming and would be able to produce more as there would now be more land suitable for these processes.
Since dairy farming is the only industry that would be disadvantaged by this policy the overall economy would be in economic growth. This is because only one industry is disadvantaged (dairy) while all the others benefit. All the areas benefited and growing economically because of this policy would outweigh the slight shrinkage that would occur in the dairy industry as this is just one area of our economy. A downside of this policy would be that it is quite a large thing to enforce and would need to be introduced over an extended amount of time. It would also be hard to monitor the transfer over to the new systems that would fit the new regulations as there are so many different farmers that would need to be monitored.
Although both of these do result in economic growth, they do this in different ways. The first policy would first lower production when the tax is introduced as it is now less profitable for producers, but then as the tax money is used for research and put back into the dairy industry in the form of research and environmental conservation production will shift outwards again and the dairy industry will start to grow again and in a more sustainable manner. The second policy would lower dairy production due to increased production costs but other industries that also rely on the environment and farmland would be benefitted, the dairy industry is one section of our economy and that would go down but now other areas of our economy would have the chance at more sustainable growth.
I think that policy one would be the better option to choose due to the fact that Dairy farming is such a large part of our economy and we rely on the money it brings into the country. Because of this, I think that our priority would be making sure that it continues to grow but in a sustainable way and the first policy would follow that. It would help find more efficient and practical ways of farming as well as introducing more jobs in the area of research which would then help lower unemployment. It would lower production in the short term after it is introduced but after that stage is passed it will just become beneficial to everyone involved and help to continue bringing money into New Zealand via the Dairy industry. Meanwhile the other policy would make other areas of our economy more sustainable and help them grow which is good, but since dairy is the biggest export in our country, we need to make sure that it continues to stay strong and this policy would end up lowering our rates of exports.