Kuriger BarbaraPrimary SectorCHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): Members I understand that responsible Ministers are available to speak to the Votes in the primary sector volume (B.5 Volume 9). The question is that Vote Agriculture Biosecurity Fisheries and Food Safety; Vote Forestry; and Vote Lands stand part of the Schedules.BARBARA KURIGER (Chairperson of the Primary Production Committee): It's a pleasure to stand up and take a call as the new chair of the Primary Production Committee and I was involved through this process. We covered a wide range of topics as primary industries tend to do so I'm just going to go through and give the committee an idea today of those issues that we did cover. One of them—the first one really often we jump to because water's so important—is actions for healthy waterways. I guess there's been some concern about how farmers are going to meet those standards and one of the things we asked was what the Minister the Hon Damien O'Connor would say to farm systems that can't adjust. The Minister told us that farmers would have to take a fresh approach and while travelling around the country he has seen farms where farmers are doing everything that's expected of them in areas such as biodiversity management and protecting waterways. The Minister said he recognises that not every farmer has the level of capability but he considered that sharing knowledge is very important. We spent quite a section of time discussing reducing nitrogen input on farms in Canterbury and there is a high level of concern that came through in our questioning of the Minister and of the ministry around that and the continued farming on land in Canterbury around the dissolved inorganic nitrogen levels which led to further conversations around change in land use because obviously there's pressure for different types of land uses and of course if some farm types are not able to be continued because of the inorganic nitrogen levels then there would be a big drop in the value of the land related to those levels.We talked also a lot and asked a lot of questions around land-use change to forestry. The Minister explained that the Government is watching the level of land-use change to forestry really carefully. He said he's mindful that trees could end up planted on high-quality farmland. But we also discussed what amount of afforestation the Minister would define as massive as it's causing a lot of discussion out in our communities. The Minister said he had not set the threshold and would not do so; however he would look at stepping in if it reached 40000 hectares a year or thereabouts noting that it is not only his decision. We talked also about the class of land being converted to forestry. There's quite a dilemma at the moment between good productive land for food and land that's being diverted into forestry. Te Uru Rākau told us that it does not distinguish between the trees that are planted solely for carbon farming and those that are planted for production forestry. That was a concern for the committee that that distinguishment is not happening.The next thing we moved on was the primary sector's response to COVID-19 supporting people into jobs in the primary sector and the skills needed to put those people into jobs that they currently have no skills for which brought into the conversation the agricultural training establishments well-known as Telford and Taratahi. We also asked questions of the Minister about engagement with the primary sector. We commended the primary sector for its hard work during sustained operations being essential services through COVID-19. We also acknowledge the efforts of the Government and the ministry which worked exceptionally hard with the sector over the last few months. I point to a couple of things that they really worked hard on that were mentioned. Certainly moving day was one of them because we went through a stage where we weren't sure how well moving day with Mycoplasma bovis and COVID-19 was going to work. The other thing is there was a level of frustration about bringing sheep scanners into the country but the ministry worked very hard.In my limited time I've got left as my chair report I just wanted to point to one of the things in innovation that we had a chance to discuss and that was the red seaweed that we're pinning our hopes on to help our methane issues as an industry in the future. So all in all a productive session with our select committee. Thank you Madam Chair.