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Like many countries around the world, New Zealand has proposed short-sided government policies with the intent of decreasing emissions. And like other similar global policies, the science backing these policies is flawed and does not account for the impact it will have on farmers and rural communities. What is likely to happen is an increase in micronutrient deficiencies once meat is no longer available or affordable and the destruction of the rural way of life.
In the case of New Zealand, once farmers are no longer able to keep up with the tax levied on meat production, they will have to shutter their farms. This will not decrease the demand for meat; it will only require that meat be imported from another country at an added expense and increased emissions from transportation.
What is often overlooked in these policy debates are the personal stories of farmers experiencing this firsthand. On this episode of the podcast, I am joined by Storm Baynes-Ryan, a New Zealand farmer. Storm and I discuss:
- The specifics of New Zealand’s new tax policies
- How this impacts farmers and the rural community
- Typical farming practices in New Zealand
- The mental health impacts
Resources:
New Zealand’s emissions reduction plan
Connect with Storm:
Instagram: @stormlbr
Episode Credits:
Thank you to all who’ve made this show possible. Our hosts are Diana Rodgers and James Connelly. Our producer is Emily Soape. And, of course, we are grateful for our sponsors, Patreon supporters, and listeners.
If you’re ready to take your support for a nutritious, sustainable, and equitable food system to the next level, join my Global Food Justice Alliance community on Patreon. You will have access to ad-free podcasts, exclusive videos, a discussion community, and much more. Go to sustainabledish.com/join to support my work.
A big thanks to the sponsor of today’s show, LMNT. Do you often suffer from headaches, muscle cramps, fatigue, or sleeplessness? It could be from an electrolyte deficiency, and drinking plain water may not be enough to replenish lost electrolytes. LMNT is a drink mix that has everything you need and nothing you don’t – no artificial ingredients, food coloring, gluten, fillers, or sugar!
LMNT comes in lots of great flavors, and when you go to sustainabledish.com/LMNT, you’ll get a free sample pack with your purchase. Plus, they have a convenient subscription program that makes it easy for you to keep your favorite flavors fully supplied. Head over to sustainabledish.com/LMNT to give it a try.
For the month of February, running a free community blood sugar challenge. You’ll learn how to use a continuous glucose monitor (CGM) to guide your food choices, plus a free ebook and access to live Zoom calls.
I’m also partnering with Levels to offer two free months when you sign up as a member to get the CGM without a prescription. Just visit sustainabledish.com/bloodsugar to sign up.
And if you are listening to this after our challenge has ended, you can still get access to my blood sugar challenge ebook and the recorded Zoom calls, plus the special offer from Levels.
Transcript:
Diana Rodgers, RD
Welcome to the Sustainable Dish Podcast. I’m Diana Rodgers, a real food registered dietitian, author, and sustainability advocate. I co-host this podcast with James Connelly, who was a producer on my film Sacred Cow. I also founded the Global Food Justice Alliance, an initiative advocating for the inclusion of animal-source foods like meat, dairy, and eggs for a more nutritious, sustainable, and equitable worldwide food system. You can check it out and join me at global food justice.org. Thanks again for listening. And now, on to our show.
(Blood Sugar Challenge Ad) Diana Rodgers, RD
Hey Everyone. I’m really excited to let you know about the free community blood sugar challenge that I am running for the month of February for my followers. You’ll learn how to use a continuous glucose monitor (CGM) to find out how food impacts your individual body so that you can make the best choices when it comes to your diet. It was a complete game changer for me and I recommend CGMs to all of my nutrition clients. I’m partnering with Levels to offer two free months when you sign up as a member to get the CGM without a prescription. You just need to visit sustainabledish.com/bloodsugar – all one word – and enter your email to get the free ebook, access to the live Zoom calls, and this special offer from Levels. And if you are listening to this after our challenge has ended, you can still get access to my blood sugar challenge ebook and the recorded Zoom calls, plus the special offer from Levels. Learning about how food impacts your blood sugar is valuable information we all should know. Visit sustainabledish.com/bloodsugar to sign up.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Welcome to the podcast, everybody. Today I have with me Storm Baynes-Ryan, and this is our like fifth attempt to record a podcast. We’ve had some technical issues. But in this time, I have gotten to know her, and she is lovely. What is going on in New Zealand right now is really something that I want all of you to listen to because it’s going to really impact a lot of farmers in New Zealand. It is based on some really huge misunderstandings about livestock and carbon cycles and the value that rural communities have to the country. So welcome, Storm. Thank you for being here.
Storm Baynes-Ryan
Thank you for having me.
Diana Rodgers, RD
So quickly for our audience. I learned about you from Instagram. What’s your Instagram handle, by the way?
Storm Baynes-Ryan
Oh, it’s pretty basic stormlbr.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Storm LBR. Okay, I learned about you because you were standing on a very, very hilly part of your farm, which is the majority of your farm, and you were just showing how like no other food production could possibly take place. Will you talk a little bit about your farm and what you raise, and just the typography… the topography of your landscape?
Storm Baynes-Ryan
Sure thing. So my husband and I have our first farm. I’ve… my family has been farming for 100 years. I was born on a farm. But we’ve done this all ourselves, and we just purchased our first farm in May last year. We have 63 hectares of mainly steep hill country. So that means it’s hills that you can’t walk straight down. You have to zigzag. Some of it, you can’t even walk down; you have to scramble. And we have about nine hectares of flats. I run sheep and beef specifically for finishing to send to the works.
Diana Rodgers, RD
And let’s talk a little bit about this recent policy and how it’s going to imp… like what are the real impacts that it’s going to have? Talk about basically what’s going on.
Storm Baynes-Ryan
So there is a policy, which is still in it… still in the works. It’s still being changed on a weekly basis. I believe it’s based on very weak science. I believe the numbers that they’re using are weak. And they haven’t used any recent updated information. But it’s specifically to decrease production on New Zealand farms. By decreasing production, theoretically, we will decrease the release of greenhouse gases, including the short-lived methane and the 6-10% of long-lived gases that theoretically, New Zealand agriculture releases.
Diana Rodgers, RD
So the farmers are going to be taxed per kilo of meat?
Storm Baynes-Ryan
Per kilo. So the theory is that we will say how much stock we have, how long we’ve had it for, what the weight was when they arrive, what the weight was when they lived, how long they were on the farm, what grass they ate – theoretically, very complex calculator. I don’t think it’s particularly accurate. But anyway. And then, for each year, we will be taxed on how much theoretical greenhouse gas emissions we create on our farm based on a per kilo of carbon emissions. Yeah, greenhouse gas emissions. That will be how it works. We can sequester some by having fenced-off areas of trees that are more than a hectare in size. And that is managed with pest management. We can also use sheep. We can use some technology with the sheep that have lower emissions as well as a bolus for cattle. And we get a decrease in fees as such, but neither of those are currently available.
Diana Rodgers, RD
So none of the grasslands, in theory, sequester any carbon.
Storm Baynes-Ryan
No. New Zealand grass does not sequester carbon.
Diana Rodgers, RD
So you’re defying basic biology in New Zealand – only so grasslands and other places can sequester carbon but not in New Zealand. And the trees have to be only pine, um…
Storm Baynes-Ryan
Oh, so we can use native bush,
Diana Rodgers, RD
You can use native bush,
Storm Baynes-Ryan
But it has to be fenced, and it has to be more than a hectare. Because if it’s not a hectare, it doesn’t sequester.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Right. Only only stands of trees that are more than a hectare can sequester. Oh, and they have to be planted after what year?
Storm Baynes-Ryan
Yeah, it gets too complex. But it’s something to do with 1990 and the baseline. And then there’s a thing called additionality where, although they may be sequestering… I don’t… let’s just make up a number because I can’t remember it. Let’s say, I don’t know, 3.5 tonne per hectare. You might only get point five tonne per hectare because it’s only sequestering an extra .5 since 1990.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Because that’s supposed to be the baseline,
Storm Baynes-Ryan
Because that’s the baseline.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Okay. Okay. And so, what’s the reality? What’s the reality? Oh, you know, what else I wanted to make sure that people understood is, can you describe your current ag practices? Like, you know,
Storm Baynes-Ryan
Absolutely. So it’s standard, I would like to think so. But I certainly have a lot to learn. Still, I’m a very new farmer. And in the reality of running my own farm, what I try to do is I base my farming off the growth cycle of grass. So when the grass is fully grown, I put the stock in, and I get them to eat it, and I put them on a space that I think that they’ll eat within two days, then I take them off that grass, put them into a new space that’s similar in size and terms of how much grass there is, size of the animals, how many animals few things like that. Then I will move them on, and I will not put them back onto that grass that first bit that is grazed until it is regrow. And that might be 60 days, maybe even longer if it’s a cold or wet, or just miserable winter, which we just did had. And it might be between 12 and 18 days in the spring when the grass is growing really fast. My limiting factor because my farmer is so steep is that I don’t have enough fences to be able to do it perfectly. But I do it the best I can in terms of making sure that we are always rotating the animals around the farm and letting the grass regrow.
Diana Rodgers, RD
And that’s not unusual.
Storm Baynes-Ryan
No, most farmers I know doing something really similar. The caveat to that is for Animal Health. When the lamb… ewes are about to lamb, there’ll be left in a paddock. It’ll be a bigger paddock, there’ll be more space for each animal. But they won’t be taken off when the grass has been chewed down. Because the grass doesn’t get chewed down because there’s a bigger space. Because we don’t want to be moving ewes and lambs or cows and calves and some people, but especially specifically ewes and lambs. We don’t want to be moving them when they have babies because that just causes all sorts of problems with mismothering, lambs getting lost, lambs dying. So, but that’s just a very specific time period. The rest of the time, most farmers that I know, and all farmers that I respect, are on a rotational grazing program.
Diana Rodgers, RD
And will you talk about how this is going to impact the farmers that you know?
Storm Baynes-Ryan
So it’s all very theoretical because we don’t know, but it’s likely to decrease profitability by about 20% across the board. And for our excellent farmers, that will probably be five to 10%. But for our farmers that are struggling, for those that have high-interest rates, massive mortgages have been impacted by huge weather events such as the rain. We’ve had a couple this year, some floods where my friend had 100 hectares of slip, just come down, where fences have been taken out and where all those costs are building up, taking that much of their profit which will… it will be more like 30 or 40% of the profit. It will wipe them out. For people like me that are just starting out. It’s going to make a big difference to whether I can make it or not. It’s going to shut down things like schools, rural communities. It takes away some of the richness of the things… of the men that have been breeding dogs for years and years. And training cattle dogs for the amazing station horses which just do the most astonishing things that are bred on these farms. They will be gone. Because if we can’t have the farms, we don’t have those… we don’t have rural people who can think outside of the box. We don’t have people… they just… they’re the ones that get into the working base and create these amazing things like going to a working bee for a show as likely to be people who are rural. And so we take away these people, we take away a huge richness in our, in our society. And we bring everybody in, just compress them into town. And for me that would just break me. I’m not suited for town life.
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Diana Rodgers, RD
It’s really unfortunate that people who are so disconnected from farming and rural life are making such impactful policy decisions that are going to absolutely destroy the way of life for so many people. There’s this idea that I talked about a little bit with James Connolly that my co-producer called “longtermism” and how we were discussing how wrong it is to be so overly concerned with, you know, these ideas of how people might live in 1000 years from now and colonizing Mars and all of these big ideas, while simultaneously neglecting the people who right now need nourishment, need livelihoods. You know, there are massive nutrient deficiencies worldwide that’s not going to go away. Those nutrient deficiencies are largely best met with animal-source foods like beef and lamb. And, you know, not to mention how silly it is that it needs to be, you know, a hectare of pine trees fenced off. So no grazing inside the trees, which is a practice that can actually increase biodiversity. Talk a little bit about the person from Ikea that’s buying land.
Storm Baynes-Ryan
So there is a beautiful farm, I think it is 5000 hectares, and there’s another farm next to it. If it was in the center of New Zealand, it would be a dairy farm. It is stunning. That is productive. Now the New Zealand government says that we are not planting farm… productive farmland and trees and that’s an absolute load of rubbish. There’s a man, the man who owns IKEA has bought these farms. And he as far as I understand it, is turning it into productive forest. So it’s plantation forests where the trees will be planted, the trees will be pruned and thinned. And then in 25 years, they will be milled and theoretically used for IKEA furniture.
Diana Rodgers, RD
And that’s somehow better for the environment than what you’re doing?
Storm Baynes-Ryan
Apparently, he’s allowed to continue with… he’s bought it as a carbon offset. So apparently, businesses that pollute are allowed to continue to pollute without decreasing their pollution. As long as they plant trees on productive farmland. I can’t make it make sense. I don’t know about you.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Right? And he doesn’t… he’s not even a New Zealander.
Storm Baynes-Ryan
No, he’s not a New Zealander. So, if you own a farm, if you’re someone from overseas who owns a farm in New Zealand, as far as I understand it, you need to spend about six months of the year in New Zealand. I don’t know if you have to be on your farm. But that’s what you have to do. If you own a forest in New Zealand, you never, ever have to come.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Wow, this is absolutely mind-blowing to me that the New Zealand farmers are going to suffer. Demand for meat worldwide is not going to go down. It just means that New Zealand farmers are not going to get their share of business. And it’s just going to go to some other country where the farming practices are undoubtedly not as nature positive as New Zealand’s practices because it is definitely, as a country the best that I’ve seen, as far as grazing practices. I think it’s really sad to that, you know, people are gonna have to go to the grocery store and buy meat from somewhere else, to somehow reduce their carbon footprint.
Storm Baynes-Ryan
I can’t get my head around it. One of the people I spoke to about policy, seemed really adamant that this was the best and only way forward. But I feel like it’s not it just can’t be. And that’s also not to say that we can’t improve what we’re doing in New Zealand because there are always ways to improve. And that’s not to say that we are perfect, or that we aren’t, there are no emissions, but there must be a better way so that we don’t decrease our production. Thus, that other countries have to pick up the slack to create enough meat for people to eat, which would increase global emissions. And from what I understand, we need to be looking at emissions is a global thing rather than New Zealand doing an awesome job of decreasing our emissions by 20%, which is .002 I believe of world global emissions is what we would decrease in our long-term gases. But it would, by decreasing the world emissions by that much, it would decimate rural New Zealand, I just don’t understand it. And there has to be a better way. And I’m, and I believe that if we have emissions, then we need to, we have a responsibility to mitigate them and to pay for them. If that’s what needs to be done, we need to do something. Absolutely. And I’m not going to argue that, but it has to be better.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Yeah, here in the US, there are some dairy farmers that are doing really great work with, you know, converting some of the methane to fuel by covering manure lagoons and all that kind of stuff. But by and large, the meat farmers in New Zealand that are pasture-based that’s nothing like these large dairy farms with huge manure lagoons. So you don’t have a manure lagoon. You’re not creating an imbalance of gases on your farm.
Storm Baynes-Ryan
No, and I and with, obviously, with the way that we manage our pasture, we try and get all that manure into one spot. And then we let it break down. And that’s what… we get it to move along, and all our water comes from rain. We don’t irrigate. Some farms do in New Zealand, and that’s how they make it work. But we were basically rainwater. If it doesn’t rain, we’ve got no water.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Right, well, we’re going to keep following this. I’m going to see if there might be an opportunity for me to hop over to New Zealand in April when I’m there, down in Sydney. And I’ll continue to be watching this. Please keep me updated through Instagram with you know,
Storm Baynes-Ryan
Oh absolutely.
Diana Rodgers, RD
We’ll link to your Instagram handle and that one video showing your farm in the show notes. Is there anything else you’d like to share?
Storm Baynes-Ryan
I really don’t know. I’m just… I feel like I’m a very new farmer. I’m a middle-aged mother of four. And I’m just heartbroken that these laws could be coming in without us being able to really make it legitimate and use the proper science.
Diana Rodgers, RD
It’s really heartbreaking. I’m seeing policies like this, I’m seeing active farmland being taken out, especially around the UK, in particular. we see what’s happening right now in the Netherlands. There’s some really crazy policy happening there too, and harming farmers.
Storm Baynes-Ryan
It’s really frightening.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Yeah, so well, thank you for your time. I know this is a little bit shorter of a podcast for most of my listeners. But we again had some technical issues and just trying to squeeze this in. So yeah, thank you again, Storm for your time.
Storm Baynes-Ryan
You’re welcome, Diana. Yeah, there’s one more thing I actually did want to say if you’ve got a second. As I was speaking to a friend who runs a… just a mental health organization locally. And she said that in the recent months, she has men who are… New Zealand men don’t talk about their feelings, just to let you know. She’s had a massive uptick in men coming to see her because they are so stressed about the changes that have been put upon them by the government and the lack of knowing because this policy is a bit fluffy. And if the mental health of men is suffering, then what about everybody else? And that’s the other thing that I think that people aren’t paying attention to when we’re looking at all the social things that mental health is also something that we really need to pay attention to. We need to make sure that everybody is feeling okay. And feeling sure of themselves in this policy. Nobody feels certain.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Yeah, I mean, rural communities are so critically important and often forgotten, especially today, when everything is just gotten so polarized, and people have this carbon tunnel vision without really thinking about the unintended consequences of what this really means for the citizens of their country. So, yeah…
Storm Baynes-Ryan
Thank you.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Well, thanks again for being here. And I wish you the best with all of this.
Storm Baynes-Ryan
Thank you very much, Diana. Well, it will all work out in the end. I’m certain of it, but we just need to keep talking.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Yeah.
Diana Rodgers, RD
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