East Coast farmer and bush poet Graeme Williams is back with another poem for Jacinda Ardern. 

Today he wants to take the Government to task over carbon farming and shares his poem, written at 2 o’clock this morning — his “least angry period of the day”.

Dear Aunty Jacinda,
From you we have not heard.
I’ve written to you twice before
And this will be my third.

I’m really, really annoyed
And I think it’s only fair,
That the reason for the annoyance
With the country, I should share.

Carbon farming will ruin us all.
Of that, I have no doubt.
I am acutely aware of the issues
And wish to share my views about.

A majority of the country I suggest,
Will be unaware, I’m sure.
That the current legislation
Will see us all peasantly and poor.

When it comes to meat production,
Specifically beef and lamb.
The fundamental biology
Requires both a bull and a ram

Breeding properties are the integral link
To source the fattening stock.
The demise of entire regions
Is almost beyond reproach to block.

The entire East Coast of the North Island
Particularly the Wairarapa and East Cape,
Is a time bomb nearly constructed,
As your ETS is taking shape.

A majority of New Zealanders
Just wouldn’t have a clue.
The horse has all but bolted,
It’s almost irretrievable in my view.

New Zealand red meat farmers
Are the most efficient in the world.
A view that isn’t hearsay,
As it is internationally held.

The land the stock is bred on,
Is getting blanketed in trees.
Future generations will be sourcing meat
From the likes of the Indonese.

It’s your carbon-driven polices
That are putting land values through the roof.
Fine if you require a diet
From nothing with a hoof.

Entire regions are blanket-planted
In inedible trees.
The reality will become apparent only
When we’re crippled at the knees.

Every living Kiwi,
From each and every street.
Has a general consensus pattern
Of stopping three times a day to eat.

Kiwi lamb and beef
Is what the majority of us seek.
It will be as endangered as the kiwi itself,
It’s escalating as I speak.

We have traditionally fed the world,
With stock from off this land.
We’ll be shortly heading to the world for food
As peasants cap in hand.

The breeding farms will all be gone,
Test tubes will grow our meat.
A famine of our richest foods,
Will lay at Jacinda’s feet.