The NZ Farming Story: Tackling Agricultural Emissions

Methane and nitrous oxide from agriculture make up around half of New Zealand’s greenhouse gas emissions - a proportion that is much higher than the norm for developed countries. New Zealand can potentially make a significant contribution to the global climate effort through research and policy innovation to mitigate agricultural emissions.  Motu has done extensive empirical and theoretical research on approaches to facilitating and motivating mitigation both through the New Zealand Emissions Trading Scheme and also through a range of other private and public efforts.

The film covers a wide range of topics, and many of the ideas in it come directly from what we learnt through the AgDialogue process. Importantly, we cover how we might be able to achieve some real reductions in New Zealand’s agricultural GHGs (greenhouse gases). You will get to meet some of the participants and experts from AgDialogue, including two of our star farmers, Mike and Megan.

Motu would like to acknowledge all the hard work that went into making the film. To all those in the AgDialogue who gave their time and those who have done related research in the past few years, this film is dedicated to you and the hard work you have done. Also thank you to our filmmaker Jess and the Ministry for Primary Industries for its support. The work will pay off in creating a more sustainable and prosperous future for us and future generations.

Teaching materials to accompany the film have now also been released. These can be found here.