The impacts of including the agricultural sector in the New Zealand Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) depend on how farmers change their behaviour in response to the increased cost of emissions. Yet most analyses of the ETS do not allow for a behavioural response. This paper partially addresses the gap in the literature: it allows for farmers to change their land use to reflect the reduced returns from pastoral agriculture as well as the potential to earn carbon credits for sequestration performed by plantation forestry and scrub. Simulations performed in the Land Use in Rural New Zealand (LURNZ) model allow us to answer questions about the likely spatial and temporal distribution of the socio-economic impacts of the ETS.