Almost all of it comes from farms<\/a>, especially the burps and breaths of ruminant animals like cows and sheep.<\/p>\nOnly 40% would use methane vaccine \u2013 survey<\/p>\n
A 2025 survey of farmers by the Bioeconomy Science Institute (formerly Manaaki Whenua Landcare) found only 7% of dairy farmers who responded said reducing their emissions would be a major focus in the next two years. Only 40% of respondents planned to use a methane vaccine, if it became available.<\/p>\n
Ruminant Biotech market access director George Reeves told the conference that New Zealand risked losing its global competitiveness unless it developed a \u201crobust, long-term, scalable incentive for methane abatement\u201d. He told RNZ that did not necessarily have to be taxpayer-funded. Instead, New Zealand could use voluntary carbon markets, or set up a scheme similar to one being developed in Australia, where farmers could earn carbon units by reducing their emissions intensity.<\/p>\n
Ruminant Biotech planned to launch its bolus for certain types of beef cattle later this year and expected that \u201cearly adoption is going to be OK,\u201d Reeves said. However, he wanted to see a broader incentive scheme in place by 2028.<\/p>\n
AUT industry fellow and climate economist David Hall said a direct government subsidy scheme for deployment of some tools would make sense while they were still new and did not have general buy-in. \u201cIn the economics of innovation, that\u2019s recognised as a justified and reasonable cost.\u201d Once the tools had a market foothold, that direct support could be withdrawn, and a low-level price on emissions introduced to keep driving uptake, he said.<\/p>\n
Incentive to use potential methane vaccine removed<\/p>\n
In a speech to a DairyNZ forum in March, parliamentary commissioner for the environment (and former minister for the environment) Simon Upton raised concerns about both the timeframe and uptake of some promised technologies. He pointed out that the government\u2019s baseline emissions projections relied on at least 37% of dairy cattle receiving a methane vaccine \u2013 which were still at \u2018proof-of-concept\u2019 stage \u2013 by 2030. \u201cI personally find this assumption heroic,\u201d he said. \u201cNot only do we not yet have such a vaccine, but the government\u2019s decision to abandon a price on methane removes the incentive to use one should it materialise.\u201d<\/p>\n
Significant taxpayer funding was being invested into vaccines and other technologies. \u201cTaxpayers are entitled to ask why this outlay should continue if the vaccines are not going to be adopted,\u201d he said. Subsidies could be a pragmatic approach, \u201cbut the quid pro quo has to be uptake\u201d.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP\/\/\/yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7\")
Parliamentary commissioner for the environment Simon Upton (Radio NZ)<\/p>\n
In a submission on the amended emissions reduction plan last year, industry group DairyNZ also called the assumptions about uptake \u201cambitious\u201d. \u201cDairyNZ has consistently encouraged government to be cautious when making assumptions on technology availability, efficacy and uptake.\u201d Incentives were essential, but the tools also needed to be practical to implement, and must not affect food safety or threaten overseas trade, the organisation said.<\/p>\n
In a written statement, Watts said the government had \u201cincreasing confidence in the technology pipeline\u201d and expected to see the first tools that AgriZero had invested in available this year. \u201cWhile emission predictions inherently carry some uncertainty, the government is committed to working with the agriculture sector to boost productivity while lowering emissions,\u201d he said. There would be \u201d range of opinions\u201d on any new technology, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cHowever, I have heard from many in the sector who support the development of new methane inhibitors and other incentives that increase production while reducing emissions.\u201d He did not answer questions about whether any policy work had been commissioned on an incentive or offset scheme, or what would drive uptake in the absence of any productivity gains.<\/p>\n
\u2013 RNZ<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Agri-tech leaders say incentives would be required to ensure uptake of any new technologies, with current projections labelled…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":413131,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[138,390,30953,212416,111,139,69,135,212417],"class_list":["post-413130","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-climate-change","tag-dairy-farming","tag-methane-gas","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-politics","tag-rnz-content"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413130","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=413130"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413130\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/413131"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=413130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=413130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=413130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}