Rush to October deadline for on-farm forest plantings

Using land for forests is both a temptation and a bugbear for beef and sheep farmers. (Image: NZME)

Fri, 13 Jun 2025

A rush of forestry planting on farmland is predicted as farmers and landowners seek to beat an October deadline restricting the inclusion of newly converted farmland in the emissions trading scheme.A report for Beef + Lamb NZ (B+LNZ) by consultants Orme & Associates on land-use change from pastoral farming to large-scale forestry shows that:Almost two-thirds of all farm-forestry conversions, whether for carbon or production forests, involved foreign investors in 2024, at 65.1% compared with 45% the year before.Since 2021, there's been a...

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