Bob Edlin: Govt favours farming over forestry....

Govt favours farming over forestry – but is it giving a greater priority to growing cities than growing crops?

Just a few days ago, Agriculture and Forestry Minister Todd McClay was braying about the introduction “of long awaited legislation that will put a stop to large-scale farm-to-forestry conversions”.

This would deliver on a key election promise to protect the future of New Zealand food production.

“For too long, productive sheep and beef farms have been replaced by pine trees in the race for carbon credits. That ends under this Government,” Mr McClay says.

Farming good…forestry bad.

But farmers will be aware that the government has another message.

Farming good … housing better.

The Press in recent days reported:

Some of NZ’s best farmland could be opened up for housing

The Government is looking to ease housing pressures by removing protections from some of New Zealand’s best farmland, a move some warn could damage exports and regional food security.

Supporters of the change say it could help unlock more land for desperately needed homes, especially in areas where strict planning rules have pushed up prices and limited supply.

The Press explained that the proposal targets so-called “LUC 3 land”, part of a system that ranks land from 1 (most productive for farming) to 8 (least).

Since 2022, the top three categories — LUC 1, 2 and 3 — have been off-limits for most housing developments under the National Policy Statement for Highly Productive Land.

LUC 3 land covers about 10% of the country and makes up most of the land currently protected.

But land developers obviously have been leaning on Chris Bishop, the Minister in Charge of Breaking Down Barriers to Growth.

He is obviously keen on promoting urban growth. And infrastructural growth.

But how will building more houses on crop-producing land promote export growth?

Actually, the news reported by the Press was signalled in a Beehive press statement on 27 March.

Bishop – as Housing and Infrastructure Minister – then announced he was providing financial help for land developers to bulldoze their way on to farmland as well as looking for crop-producing land to help extend city boundaries:

The Government has made changes to build more homes on the outskirts of our cities, allocating $100 million to be lent to developers for housing infrastructure, as well as cutting the RMA red tape restricting land available for development, says Housing and Infrastructure Minister Chris Bishop.

“The government is committed to letting our cities grow up and out to address our housing crisis. Medium-sized greenfield developments play a crucial role in increasing supply, but without the right support, many projects risk being delayed or unable to progress,” says Chris Bishop.

“The government’s Going for Housing Growth and Resource Management Act reforms will be critical in addressing our housing crisis – but it will take time to legislate and then bed in. In the meantime, we don’t have time to waste, so these immediate changes are necessary interim measures to help boost housing supply.”

The government’s National Infrastructure Funding and Financing Agency (NIFFCo) had been developing “a pipeline of potential important greenfield projects”. The initial transactions are expected to be drawn from this pipeline.

“Under this new model, which we are calling the Greenfield Model, NIFFCo will lend to an Infrastructure Funding and Finance Act Special Purpose Vehicle at a very competitive interest rate during the development phase of a project. Then, the debt will be refinanced to private markets once the development is complete. The funding will ultimately be repaid by future homeowners through an annual levy.”

But wait – there’s more:

“I am also announcing today that Cabinet has agreed to remove LUC-3 protections from the National Policy Statement on Highly Productive Land (NPS-HPL) this year, fulfilling National’s election promise.

“The NPS-HPL protects our productive soils from development, ensuring New Zealand has a secure food supply. However, there needs to be a balance between how we protect our most productive land with our need for more housing to tackle our housing crisis.

“As currently drafted, the NPS-HPL protects a total of 15 percent of the country’s landmass. Three classifications of soil are protected under the NPS-HPL, with two thirds being classified as LUC-3, the lowest quality.”

Across the country, Bishop said, this change had the potential to open up new land for greenfield housing roughly equivalent to the size of the Waikato region.

But Bishop has weighed things up and is keen to establish “balance”:

“To ensure we have got the balance between protecting our food supply and enabling more houses to be built, alongside this change we are going to consult on whether we should establish ‘special agriculture zones’.

“These would essentially protect LUC 1, 2 and 3 land when it is grouped together in a natural configuration in key horticultural horticulture hubs like Horowhenua or Pukekohe.

“These are good, short-term and cost-effective interventions while we get the underlying system settings right to fix our housing crisis. They will both make it easier to bring new much needed housing projects to market that otherwise wouldn’t have happened or would have happened much later.”

So there we have it.

First priority is fixing the housing crisis.

But how much export income could be generated from farm and horticultural land equivalent to the size of the Waikato region?

The Labour-led government released new rules to enhance protections for the country’s most productive land in 2022 in a bid to provide security for domestic food supply and primary exports.

The National Policy Statement for Highly Productive Land (NPS-HPL) was designed to protect land from inappropriate subdivision, use and development, Environment Minister David Parker said.

Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor then said:

“Once land is built on, it can no longer be used to grow food and fibre.”

Over the previous 20 years, about 35,000 hectares of our highly productive land had been carved up for urban or rural residential development, while 170,000ha of this land has been converted to lifestyle blocks.

Bob Edlin is a veteran journalist and editor for the Point of Order blog HERE. - where this article was sourced.