Māori Party Co-leader and Te Tai Hauāuru candidate Debbie Ngarewa-Packer has today welcomed the announcement of the Green Party’s agriculture policy, which adopts two key components of the climate action plan she announced on behalf of the Māori Party in July.

“It’s awesome to see the Greens adopting our Māori Party policies to phase out synthetic fertilisers and set up a $300m to support farmers’ transitions to organic and regenerative agriculture,” said Mrs Ngarewa-Packer.

“Intensive dairying has become the country’s biggest river and climate polluter in Aotearoa. We can only meet our emissions reductions obligations by significantly reducing livestock numbers and moving away from emissions-intensive farming practices like the use of synthetic nitrogen fertiliser, and imported feed, and towards regenerative and value-added farming.

“A key component of our climate action policy plan, announced in July, is our policies to reduce agricultural emissions, which includes bringing methane into the ETS, phasing out synthetic fertilisers by 2025 and establishing a $300m Mātai Ahuwhenua fund to support Māori farmers to transition towards regenerative and value-add agricultural models.

“It’s good that the Green Party have picked up our policy for a $300m fund to support farmers, and have joined us in responding to environmental groups by committing to phase out synthetic fertilisers. We look forward to working with them to get these policies over the line.

“It’s telling that Labour and National haven’t also adopted these policies. We need parties in parliament who are willing to take strong action on the climate crisis before it’s too late, which is one of the many reasons why more and more of our people are seeing the need for the Māori Party back in parliament.

“We have an obligation to our rangatahi and mokopuna to unite and do everything we can to protect our taiao and our whānau from the climate crisis in the short time that we have left,” said Mrs Ngarewa-Packer.

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