Southland farmers themselves are saying that if they had to comply with proposed water and soil quality regulations that they wouldn’t be able to exist due to the increased costs involved.
The backlash even from the introduction of a heavy vehicles tax are representative of how much these farmers think they rely on the unpriced benefits they are getting.
People always say things like this until they are forced to, and somehow find a way.
(Particularly if imports were charged similar tariffs)
That is one of two possible outcomes. The other is that the sector just dies off and relocates to another place on earth, where externalities don't have to be considered, maybe for strategic reason. This has happened many times.
If you want to enact global change, you can't just change yourself, though it's always a good place to start.
And probably a major beneficiary of similar laws currently is meat production and animal welfare laws used to exclude imports.
The net externality is probably positive, and if you want to start evening the slate using externalities then farmers would deserve a subsidy (which is bad policy).
Food is about as high on a supply chain as it is possible to get, and the entire downstream supply chain would count as an externality of the farmer's activity. If farmers didn't produce food we'd all starve to death, but that is absolutely not priced in to how much they get paid.
That's not how it works. There is no fair share. He is saying that farmers are not actually paying the costs they make society incur. Therefore these costs are not priced into the meat they produce which would not be that competitive if that was the case. It's a form of subsidy.
If the external costs were included, consumer would simply be forced to pay for their consumption.
This would give a fair advantage for food that has less external costs.
External costs are also hard to estimate, especially if they is burdened on another species. How much is the suffering of a chicken worth?
So then you get back to the original condition - subsidizing food once again. In fact, this is the reason why they are subsidized in the first place!
If a less lucky person (or what you call poor) receives money, they are still incentivized to spend the money efficiently. With the money they have available now, they can buy less meat but more plant based food than before.
Meat would then become slightly more expensive than plant, but also have a major benefit for products that don't use a lot of water or harms the soil. Aquaculture would get a big boost, as would alternative method of meat production. The use of farm animals as an ecological alternative to using machinery to keep land clear of unwanted vegetation has become a niche method, and increased water and soil regulations would indirect benefit such farming alternatives.
Please, every time someone proposes farmers lead a less cushioned life we get these huge bitter fights from somewhere. They don't also have to exist here. If you have a vested interest and want your subsidies to continue, that's cool! But there's no need to peddle your salty response to it when literally everyone everywhere has already heard them said many, many times.
Jesus Christ... Come spend a week on my farm and see how cushy it is.
Edit: Besides that, a subsidy is a cushion. That's what I was talking about. That doesn't merit this response.