The He Waka Eke Noa – Primary Sector Climate Action Partnership are working with farmers and growers to
- Reduce agricultural greenhouse gas emissions
- Recognise on-farm carbon sequestration
- Adapt to a changing climate
This article covers:
- How to calculate the potential emissions costs to get an idea and
- A link to a webinar, “Enabling action on your GHG number”, to help you test mitigation options
How to calculate the potential, indicative, emissions costs
If you are looking to understand the potential emission costs you may have to pay under the He Waka Eke Noa proposals put together by industry bodies and proposed to the government, Beef + Lamb New Zealand have put together an excellent explanation of how to do that here and the methodology for calculating it using OverseerFM is included below.
Note: As the government has yet to make a decision, the results calculated by the above method should be considered as a preliminary assessment only and not be used to make a business decision
If and when an agreed reporting approach is decided upon, we will provide additional reporting in OverseerFM to make the modelling of farm emissions easy to understand, in line with those requirements.
If you are looking to consider what mitigation practices on your farm may work to reduce your GHG emissions - whether to reduce your potential HWEN liability, or simply to increase the efficiency of your farm system - this webinar produced by Overseer Limited with Beef + Lamb New Zealand may be helpful.
An Example dairy farm calculation
Shown below is an example of a dairy farm and how to calculate the potential emissions costs based on the HWEN proposal. This dairy farm closely relates to the 2022 National Averages for GHG Emissions on dairy farms, as modelled in OverseerFM.
As of November 2022, the averages for the 4,700 dairy farms which have 2022 Year End results are:
- GHG Emissions = 11,911 ECo2/kg/ha/Yr
- Methane (CH4) = 7,799 ECo2/kg/ha/Yr
- Nitrous Oxide (N20) = 2,290 ECo2/kg/ha/Yr
- Carbon Dioxide (Co2) = 1,624
Farm Area of example dairy farm = 121 hectares
Biogenic Methane component:
Methane emissions on this farm are 8,092 ECo2/kg/ha/Yr.
Divided by 25 to get to kg of methane = 323.68 kg
Multiplied by $0.11 (or any other price you wish to test) = $35.60 per hectare
Multiplied by farm area (121ha) = $4,307.60 potential biogenic methane cost
Long lived gases (Nitrous Oxide & CO2):
Nitrous Oxide emissions on this farm are 2,506 ECo2/kg/ha/Yr
Total Carbon Dioxide emissions are 1,328 ECo2/kg/ha/Yr but of these only the dissolution from fertiliser & lime are included in the HWEN proposal
Lime + fertiliser dissolution CO2 = 312 + 161 = 473 ECo2/kg/ha/Yr
Total long lived gas emissions for HWEN purposes = 2,506 + 473 = 2,979 ECo2/kg/ha/Yr
Divide this total by 1000 to convert from kg to tonnes = 2.98 tonnes
Multiplied by $4.25 (or any other price you wish to test) = $12.66 per hectare
Multiplied by farm area (121ha) = $1,531.86 potential long lived gas cost
Total potential HWEN emissions cost for this example farm = $5,839.46
**NB. This example only covers the emissions costs as per the He Waka eke Noa proposal and does not consider other factors that me be incorporated such as incentive payments for adopting mitigation options.
Overseer Limited recommend that farmers & growers should engage with a suitably qualified rural professional to understand the implications for an individual farming business.