Tanczos Nandor: Farmers' Mutual Group Bill — Second Reading Procedure Third Reading 
Tanczos Nandor: Farmers' Mutual Group Bill — Second Reading Procedure Third Reading 
[Volume:641;Page:11152] 
NANDOR TANCZOS (Green) 
: 
 I rise to make a fairly brief contribution to this debate. First of all I indicate as other parties have indicated that the Green Party is supporting the Farmers’ Mutual Group Bill. It clearly makes sense in terms of providing greater flexibility in terms of the services that can be provided by the mutual group and it also makes sense in terms of the modernisation of its constitution and legal arrangements which are eminently sensible. Of course we absolutely support those things and echo the comments of previous contributors. 
I will touch on one other issue that I think is worth considering in relation to the Farmers’ Mutual Insurance Association and the issues of insurance around farming generally. It is worth noting that it is important to have greater flexibility and modernisation of these services because of the significant challenges that farming faces in New Zealand today in particular in terms of the issue of climate change. This issue has been well recognised now by all parties in this House and we have to recognise the impacts on the farming community that climate change presents. 
We are a nation that is still very much economically dependent on agriculture and we know that we are particularly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change at this end of the Pacific in relation to the predicted increase of extreme weather events. In terms of the impacts that climate change will have on weather patterns within our country we have started to see some of the impacts of those things already. We are told that climate change is likely to lead to the wet areas getting wetter and the dry areas getting drier. Again if the events of recent weeks are of any indication that presents significant issues for our nation—for small towns for rural communities and for farmers. 
We know that the impacts of climate change will have effects on the kinds of crops that can be grown. There is already research going on in terms of developing new forms of pasture to deal with changing climatic conditions. One has to start to ask what effect that will have on the breeds of livestock that can be carried on New Zealand land both in terms of pastoral changes and climatic changes. So to build a genetic base that is resilient enough to face these kinds of changing weather patterns is a very significant issue for us and it is one that anyone who is interested in farmers’ insurance has to take account of. 
The other big impact and this is an issue for food security all around the world is that of seasonal predictability. It is my view—and it is a personal view—that the impact of the unpredictability of our seasons will be huge in terms of the security of food supply around the world. So we have to take these things seriously. 
Another issue around insurance that farmers need to consider is in regard to the contribution that farming makes to New Zealand’s greenhouse gas emissions both in terms of the direct impacts of climate change itself on New Zealand agriculture and in terms of the effects on consumer resistance to New Zealand produce if we are not living up to our clean green image. These are significant issues and we know that there are a number of environmental impacts of farming that we need to consider: greenhouse gas emissions as I have mentioned; impacts on water quality which is a huge and growing issue because of the intensification and expansion of dairying in this country; and issues around soil erosion and the loss of some of our most productive soils—or certainly very valuable soils—into the sea at a very fast rate internationally speaking. 
I say that as a precursor to saying that one of the issues that has not been fully addressed in this country and has not been taken seriously by many people is the benefit of a move towards organic farming as a way of addressing sustainability issues around farming. We know that the impacts of a conversion to organic farming are significant and we know that organic farming methods are environmentally friendly and sustainable but the impacts on climate change specifically have not been well understood. Synthetic nitrogen—and New Zealand is a high user of synthetic nitrogen—is on its own a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. It is not necessarily directly relevant to New Zealand but there are lessons to be drawn from the UK. The manufacture of synthetic nitrogen is the single-biggest energy use in agriculture making up 37 percent of energy use. Every kilogram of nitrogen fertiliser produced leads to nearly 7 kilograms of carbon dioxide and fertilisers are the largest source of carbon dioxide emissions from agriculture and the single largest source of nitrous oxide emissions globally. 
These are the kinds of considerations we have to start taking into account. A conversion to organics and a nationwide commitment to a move towards organics is where we have to start thinking particularly given the fact that we have the National Organics Conference this weekend. This is something that we need to start to pay attention to. If we are talking about sustainable agriculture that has to include a very strong national commitment to organics. I say this in relation to the Farmers’ Mutual Group Bill simply because these issues relate to farmers’ insurance and these issues are about future-proofing agriculture in New Zealand. These issues are about how we are going to protect ourselves both in terms of the climate change impacts on our agriculture and in terms of the consumer resistance that our farmers will increasingly start to face if we do not come to grips with these issues. 
I raise these matters to give some broad context to this discussion around the Farmers’ Mutual Group Bill but also to reiterate that the Green Party is supporting this eminently sensible bill and that we are behind it 100 percent.