Farmers are the bringers of civilisation and can change the world. A few years back New Scientist magazine revealed that 10,000 years ago, farmers from the Middle East carried civilisation with them into Europe. Neither the Western and Eastern philosophical traditions would have been possible without reliable, safe and nutritious food.

It comes as no surprise then the Readers Digest’s Most Trusted People list ranked farmers as the eleventh most trusted profession; one ahead of judges and 29 places ahead of the lowest ranked group, politicians. While farmers’ contribution to civilisation is undoubted I ask in this day-and-age, how can farmers change the world?

The New Zealand Emissions Trading Scheme or NZETS is the literal gorilla in New Zealand’s midst. Somehow climate change has become a one-way argument, in that we have become so fixated with New Zealand’s emissions, we’ve forgotten that we all live on the same planet as the rest of the world. This is a world that sees France and Germany moving to remove car manufacture from their emissions trading schemes due to the economic impact it will have. This is taking place in the epicentre of the green movement. While farmers feed families cars do not. Green, it is worth remembering, is the colour of farming.

New Zealand is the only country on earth to include all farm animals in an emissions trading scheme that will impact big and small farms equally. While enrolment is deferred until 2018, all farmers will start paying from 2011 through fuel, electricity and other inputs. The picture from 2018, ten years from now, is reason for alarm. Somehow an advertising slogan, ‘clean and green’, has become the genesis for public policy and is now separated from reality. As the only country on earth to include farm animals in an emissions scheme, our exports will either be priced higher or production will be cut. Federated Farmers’ estimates of the economic cost in 2008/09 dollars equates to half of the current budget for health.

New Zealand’s response to climate change has a major logical flaw. New Zealand already does its bit for global emissions by being the world’s most efficient producer of food. Yes, New Zealand agriculture accounts for half of our emissions but agriculture represents 65 percent of everything New Zealand sells to the world. Yes, agriculture is a big part of New Zealand’s emissions profile but in world terms, it is just 0.1 percent of global emissions. Yes, New Zealand produces emissions in making food but we feed around one percent of the world’s population; 10 times more people than the emissions produced. Instead of thinking New Zealand does badly due to abject short-sightedness we ought to be proud of just how good we are on a world scale.