New Zealand-Carbon emissions.

The meat industry is adding its voice of opposition to the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) at a select committee hearing on Monday.

The National-led government is currently reviewing the contentious scheme initiated by the Labour government.

Meat & Wool New Zealand and the Meat Industry Association say if the agriculture sector was to comply with emission reductions it would significantly reduce farm profitability.

Meat Industry Association chairman Bill Falconer says for the year to September 2008, New Zealand’s 15,000 commercial sheep and beef farmers and about 80 processing plants collectively generated export earnings of $6.8 billion a year.

By he says this would be undermined using the current scheme as farmers would be burdened with the cost of compliance.

"We urge the government to rethink the approach to an ETS. If they are determined that livestock emissions be included in an ETS, then it needs to be quite different to what we have now," he says.

Falconer says farmers should be given proper incentives to use mitigation technologies so as farmers are not left worse off than their overseas competitors.