Farming leaders say recommendations that agricultural emissions should be excluded from an emissions trading scheme until there is a cheaper way of measuring them validates their long-held argument.
The recommendations were made in a joint report commissioned by the Ministry for the Environment and written by economic consultancy firms the Institute of Economic Research and Infometrics.
The current trading scheme, passed into law by the previous Labour-led government, would have seen agriculture included in 2013.
However, the entire scheme is being reviewed as part of an agreement with the National-led Government and the Act Party.
The report discusses the effects of different policy options for climate change mitigation, as well as the long and short-term impacts of scenarios such as the Emissions Trading Scheme and various carbon tax alternatives.
It says an introduction of a carbon price would not significantly affect New Zealand's growth rate.
However, it points out that the higher the cost of carbon in the world market, the greater the cost to the New Zealand economy.
The report says an emissions trading scheme should be introduced with free allocation of carbon credits to sectors which are at risk of competitiveness, although agriculture should be excluded if measuring its credits was prohibitively expensive.
But Federated Farmers' climate change spokesperson Frank Brenmuhl says other countries are looking to exclude the agriculture sector from emissions trading, and New Zealand should do the same.
Mr Brenmuhl says he also wants to know what the impact of the scheme is likely to be on individual sectors.
The Green Party says agriculture needs to be included as planned, as its important farmers are given some kind of signal that investment needs to be made to improve efficiencies and reduce the sector's emissions.
