New Zealand farmers can switch from cows to bananas: Report

Feb 2, 2007, 23:50 GMT

Wellington - New Zealand farmers, who are among the world's biggest producers of meat and dairy products, said Saturday they would switch to crops like bananas and pineapples if global warming destroyed the temperate climate that grows the rich pasture their cattle thrive on.

Farmers would manage changing climatic conditions, which local experts predict would raise temperatures over the top half of the North Island and produce more droughts on the east coast of the South Island, Frank Brenmuhl, chairman of Dairy Farmers of New Zealand, told Radio New Zealand.

He said the issue for New Zealand is not a lack of water, but managing water resources more effectively and storing more of it in lakes.

Brenmuhl was commenting on the report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released on Friday, which said without a significant reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, global warming will produce catastrophic increases in world temperatures, more droughts and rising seas.

Although New Zealand has just 0.06 per cent of the world's population, it produces 0.2 per cent of global greenhouse gases, nearly half from the methane expelled by farm animals.

Peter Neilson, chief executive of the New Zealand Business Council for Sustainable Development, said climate change could benefit the country and provide an exciting opportunity by encouraging innovation.

Neilson said leading edge research into that area was already being conducted, including a world-first breakthrough using sewage pond algae to produce bio fuel and development of a process to turn gas emissions from some major industrial processes into bio fuels for the airline industry.

'Each of these has the potential to earn billions globally, and position New Zealand as a climate change management leader, and protect and improve our trade position,' Neilson said.