Write Here,Right Now

THE AGRICULTURE sector is continuing to find the rocky road to a solution to ag emissions may be paved with good intentions, but the outcome is a mess.

Ever since the formation of the Primary Sector Climate Action Partnership, made up of 11 sector groups, as well as Māori and the Government, it has courted controversy and struggled to get farmer buy in.

The partnership’s He Waka Eke Noa (HWEN) current recommendations for mitigating agricultural emissions now appear to be up a creek without a paddle.

HWEN has struggled for farmer support from the very start. The partnership – especially the primary sector groups – have done a poor job in communicating with farmers. They have also been arrogant and dismissive of ongoing farmer concerns.

Beef+Lamb NZ and DairyNZ especially have been guilty of a ‘we know best’ attitude to farmer concerns and have also earned a reputation of being far too pliable to the current Government’s demands. It is clear industry leaders have lost the room.

Even an old, blind heading dog could have seen there was major trouble brewing when a group like Groundswell – that started from nowhere – managed to encourage tens of thousands of farmers out on the streets to protest, among other things, against HWEN. However, instead of taking note, industry leaders buried their heads in the sand and meekly parroted claims about the protest ‘not representing the farming sector’.

Now the latest uproar comes from a group of sheep and beef farmers who have penned an open letter to Beef+Lamb NZ directors demanding they make changes to the current He Waka Eke Noa (HWEN) recommendations or face a vote of no confidence.

It goes to show how just badly HWEN is going down when some of this letter’s signatories were supposedly ‘consulted’ about it before the current recommendations were made.

No one ever said the job of getting agreement on how the agricultural sector mitigates its emissions would be easy. However, the discontent, confusion and anger farmers are current feeling over HWEN means there is still much more work to do.

It is time that industry leaders stood up, both metaphorically and literally, to the Government and helped farmers get on board the waka.

It is often said there are three things that regularly impact on farmers, which they cannot control: the Government, commodity prices and the weather.

Unfortunately, in recent times it is severe weather that has affected farmers and growers in the top-of-the-south, and to a lesser extent in the Far North District, with floods decimating these regions. 

More than a metre of rain fell over four days in parts of the Nelson region, while parts of Rai Valley in Marlborough recorded similar falls. In Tākaka, half a metre of rain fell in four days, while some areas in Northland recorded the same.

This has left farmers and growers in these parts of the country with wrecked paddocks and crops, infrastructure and fencing damaged, and road closures are impeding milk collections and stock movements.

This couldn’t have happened at a worse time of year of the farming calendar, with lambing and calving under way. The clean-up will be challenging, difficult and hard work.

The resulting devastation has left many farmers dumping milk and others have lost hay and baleage supplies. According to Marlborough Federated Farmers dairy sector spokesman Evan White, around 70% of the dairy farms in the region have been affected by the recent flood. Some farmers are investigating ways of sending their milking herds out of the area so they can still be milked.

It is in times of adversity that farmers and the rural communities show their best. This is one of those times and many farmers in other parts of the country will be asking what they can do to help their flood affected colleagues.

According to the local Rural Support Trust, most affected farmers’ needs are centred mainly around machinery required to get their farms back up and running, feed to replace supplies washed away in floodwaters and manpower to repair damage.

Federated Farmers’ Feed Coordination Service allows anyone with feed or grazing available to list it, which can match it with a willing buyer in need. The Rural Support Trust is also a good place to go if you wish to help out. If you can help affected farmers in any way – even if it is just a message of support – please do.

Meanwhile, for those farmers impacted by flooding, please reach out if you need help.

WITH NOMINATIONS now closed for the local government elections to be held in October, it is time to start taking some real interest in the candidates standing and policies they support.

Voters across the country will get to choose 1,600 elected representatives – including mayors, regional councillors, local councillors and an array of local and community board members. Voter turnout at local body elections is abysmal – only 41.7% bothered nationwide in 2019.

It appears apathy is always the biggest winner at local body elections and most of us have negligible interest in the candidates standing. Surely we should all be asking what these people stand for, if they have the experience, professionalism, commercial, strategic and political nous to be effective leaders capable of delivering value for money for the services we pay for.

Many of us claim to treasure local democracy, yet we can’t be bothered to vote. Meanwhile, those who do take to trouble to put their hand up for election (and who would want the kind of invasive public scrutiny of silly schoolboy antics one new MP is currently experiencing) are often perennial candidates or political party lackeys.

For farmers and those living in the regions, we face a current government that is hell-bent on making sweeping changes to local government, with the very existence of some councils under threat.

The Three Waters reforms continue unabated, despite a great deal of opposition. This will put control of critical local infrastructure in the hands of unelected and hard to hold to account entities, likely headquartered far away from rural New Zealand. Farmers and rural voters should be supporting candidates opposed to these changes.

There are also moves for district planning functions to be regionalised, which will leave some provincial councils with little left to do. With the Government’s ‘review’ of the future of local government not winding up until next year, poor local election turnouts will give it ammunition to force amalgamations of local councils.

If you believe in local democracy and the value of regional representation then it is up to you to seek out candidates who support these concepts and vote accordingly – or risk losing it.

NZ’S BIOSECURITY officials and services are rightly on high alert, following a recent outbreak of foot and mouth disease (FMD) in previously FMD-free Indonesia.

Worryingly, viral FMD fragments were also recently discovered on pork imported into Australia from China.

Any outbreak of FMD in NZ would decimate our all-important agricultural trade and create a major disaster for our farmers and the entire economy. The country can ill-afford the loss of the primary sector’s annual $52 billion in export earnings, the 11.1% of GDP it creates, as well as the hundreds of thousands of people it employs. It is estimated NZ’s wider economy would take a hit of around $15 billion should a FMD outbreak occur here.

Thankfully both Government and officials appear to be on the ball. NZ’s biosecurity settings have been tightened and the farming sector is increasing its vigilance, with farmers being told to up their farms’ biosecurity measures.

As National’s agriculture spokesperson Barbara Kuriger says, “There can be no slip-ups in our actions to keep out foot and mouth disease out of NZ. There are no second chances with FMD!”

It’s reassuring to see how MPI has stepped up the requirements for those returning from countries where foot and mouth is present and also heightening the action taken on people and goods coming into the country from Indonesia.

If we thought the country’s recent experience with Mycoplasma Bovis and the subsequent eradication programme was tough, it would pale in comparison to the devastating impact FMD would have.  We need to be doing everything and anything to ensure that we keep this devastating disease from ever hitting our shores.

It begs the question as to why we are still allowing people in from Indonesia or NZers holidaying from Bali back into the country without more restrictions. We shut the borders during the Covid outbreak and perhaps we should be re-opening temporary MIQ to temporarily accommodate these high risk visitors and returning holidaymakers.

Wouldn’t a week’s stay in isolation for such high risk visitors and returnees be a sensible insurance policy that the country could implement until the risk is over and a reasonable precaution to protect our all-important primary sector?

As mentioned previously, we won’t get a second chance to stop FMD and taking extra precautions like this seems a prudent thing to do.

SINCE THE announcement of the trade agreement between NZ and the EU there has considerable outcry.

Some farming leaders in the dairy and sheep & beef sectors argue that NZ should not have signed the deal, but soldiered on to get a better one. Fair comment perhaps, but remember there are other primary sector people – notably those in the horticulture sector – who are smiling at the outcome.

To the critics, maybe it’s time take a look at the history books and understand why the EU, or EEC as it was originally known, was created. Put simply, it was to provide food sovereignty or food security in the economic union.

This was based on the problems that surfaced at the end of WWII when ordinary people – not those in concentration camps – starved to death. The figure of 45,000 in the Netherlands is one that comes to mind.

There was also an element in the EEC charter of creating political stability in Europe and using trade as a conduit for this.

So, as we have learned, sport and politics are inseparable and so is trade and politics – to suppose otherwise is naïve. Hence in the end, it was the politicians who made the final call to accept the EU’s offer.

This NZ/EU FTA is a reflection of history. What we saw in the negotiations was a position taken by the EU that differed little in theory from when we first began negotiating with it back in 1973. While NZ is seen as a friend, it is not a blood relation and, as they say, ‘charity begins at home’.

The EU has always prioritised its own electorally important farmers over countries like ours, who would like the largest possible slice of their affluent market.

Sure, the deal is not perfect and no one thought it would be as good as the UK FTA. But we do have a deal and an enshrined political relationship with one of the powerhouse economic regions in the world.

When Britain joined the EU, we had to find alternative markets and were very successful in doing so. It is arguably much harder today with Covid and a very uncertain and somewhat frightening geopolitical situation. But people have to eat and we produce some of best food in the world in a sustainable way, so there is hope.

The time has come to accept what we have got and move on as we have always done.

JUST AS the entire country’s health system moved into a new structure last week, a fresh Rural Health Network was also launched.

Hauora Taiwhenua brings into one organisation nine separate groups who work in the rural health sector – including those working as Rural GPs, nurses, midwives, hospitals, researchers, community organisations and Maori.

According to the entity’s interim chair Dr Fiona Bolden, the main benefit of the new organisation is that it brings all the representatives of rural health and wellbeing into one place. She says, in doing so, it creates a very powerful voice in terms of rural health advocacy.

As Bolden says, this is a crucial time for the NZ health service as the new reforms take effect. NZ’s health service – especially rural – is suffering from underfunding and a lack of workforce planning.

One of the problems with the rural health system is what is known as the ‘post code lottery’, where health services are delivered on artificial boundaries and not necessarily relevant communities of interest.

Dr Bryan Betty, medical director of the College of General Practitioners, rightly points out that it’s important for patients with complex health issues and/or living in deprived areas to have quick access to frontline medical services – which is a real issue for many rural folk.

He hopes that the new structure of the country’s health services will bring an end to the ‘post code lottery’ that everyone talks about. That is something we all, particularly those in rural regions, are hopeful of.

However, as rural people are only too aware, postcodes and mail deliveries can sometimes be slow and unreliable. But when it comes to the health of rural communities this cannot be allowed to happen.W

As Brian Betty correctly says, it’s an equity issue to ensure that we are giving equal health outcomes to all people in NZ and that includes rural communities.

It is a matter of life and death that these changes to NZ’s health system actually deliver!

A RECENT report on rural water schemes – commissioned by the Department of Internal Affairs (DIA) – will do little to quell users’ concerns about the Government’s contentious 3 Waters reforms.

Despite the Rural Supplies Technical Working Group’s (RSTWG) making 30 recommendations to DIA, the fact remains that the country’s 100 or so council-owned rural water supply schemes will be transferred into the four new co-governed water entities.

Loss of local control, ownership and governance still remains a major bugbear for rural users with their water schemes subsumed into the four new mega water entities. Just how good will a Christchurch-based water company – which has no local knowledge or governors – be at ensuring that a leak is promptly fixed on a farmer’s tank on a rural water scheme on the outskirts of Gore in Southland?  The answer is pretty obvious.

RSTWG chair and Clutha District mayor Bryan Cadogan claims his group has listened carefully to the concerns of rural communities.

Really?

The message for months has been pretty clear that rural water schemes users – up and down the width and breadth of NZ – wanted nothing to do with 3 Waters reforms. Yet Cadogan and his RSTWG have still recommended that the country’s 100 or so council-owned and run rural water schemes be transferred to the new mega water entities.

It’s clear this working group was set up to come up with an outcome that both DIA and the Government wanted. The RSTWG members can take their 30 pieces of silver and move on. The group was limited by its scope – due to the 3 Waters reform objectives.

DIA says it will now consider the RSTWG report and feed its recommendations into advice and draft policy, which will be considered by Cabinet for inclusion in “Bill Two” of the Three Waters Reform legislation.

In other words, like it or not, the country’s rural water schemes will be forced into the 3 Waters reforms as that’s what the Government wants and nothing is going to stop it.

Rural water users should remember this come the election in 2023!

THE INK was barely dry on the Government’s newly released emissions reductions plan before the whining began.

“Agriculture – New Zealand’s largest emitting sector – has got off scot-free, again!” the whiners cried. “And it is getting $339m for a new Centre for Climate Action on Agricultural Emissions, despite the sector not paying any money into the Emissions Trade Scheme.”

On the surface, that may be true. However, you only need to dig a little deeper to see there are no easy answers to agriculture’s emissions profile.

New Zealand is unique in that almost half of the country’s greenhouse gases come from the agricultural sector. However, as has been shown in the wake of Covid and the demise of NZ’s once bustling tourism sector, it’s our dairy, meat, horticulture and other primary produce that this country now relies on for income.

If the brains trust at Greenpeace and the like had their way, we’d just cull half the nation’s dairy herd and stop the use of nitrogen fertiliser. Easy! NZ’s climate ‘crisis’ would be resolved.

Not so fast. Just how would the country earn the necessary income to pay for things like schools, hospitals, subsidies for EVs, cycle lanes and trains etc, etc? Ask Sri Lanka how its recent move to organic farming worked out!

Not even the current government is silly enough to want to hamstring the country’s main source of export income without any solutions. As a recent report by the Pastoral Greenhouse Gas Research Consortium pointed out, there are few, if any, silver bullets coming in the near future to deal with nitrous oxide and methane on NZ farms and the only way farmers can currently realistically reduce their emissions is to shrink their businesses.

As DairyNZ’s Tim Mackle says reducing agricultural greenhouse gas emissions “is a tough nut to crack”.

Therefore, the $339 million to establish a Centre for Climate Action on Agricultural Emissions should be seen as an investment for all of NZ, not a freebie for farmers.

By the way, when the finalised He Waka Eke Noa proposal is announced shortly, farmers will be paying for their emissions – so there’s no free lunch.

WHEN THE Covid pandemic broke out over two years ago, Jacinda Ardern waxed lyrical about the importance of the rural-based primary sector and how it would pull the NZ economy through the tough times ahead.

It has delivered on that with interest.

The sector has come together like never before, from workers on farms, in orchards and processing plants – not to mention the marketers and managers who have got our product to market on time and at good prices.

However, it’s come at a price: people in rural NZ are fatigued and are having to cope with the additional burden of a bundle of stressful compliance.

The Government has set about reforming the health system, but 750,000 rural people (or about a 6^th of the population) have been left out in the cold – when they already get a second-rate health service. It takes more than a year in some cases to see a specialist, long distances to drive to see a GP, if there is one, an almost non-existent mental health service and a grossly overworked and underpaid health work-force.

As one GP explained, “Mental health is a low priority because they are too busy dealing with urgent medical issues”. Other doctors have said they are leaving because of the clumsy and inept bureaucracy, while others have talked about huge mental health issues in rural communities.

The Rural General Practice Network is rightly outraged at the failure of Health Minister Andrew Little to legally prioritise rural health in the new Pae Ora Health Futures Bill. Yes, under the bill there is a legal requirement to produce special strategies to deal with Maori, Pacifica, people with disabilities and women – but not for rural. It seems rural is being left to fend for itself and once again left out in the wilderness.

National’s Dr Shane Reti, who has worked as a rural GP, is right when he says the distribution of health services must be based on need – not on ideology, which he accuses the Government of doing.

The chance to improve and prioritise rural health services is now all but gone. Rural people and their health providers have seemingly been condemned to receiving poorer health services and outcomes than their urban counterparts.      

RECENTLY AGRICULTURE Minister Damien O’Connor made great fanfare when announcing a new farm planning system for farmers and growers.

He claims that the Government will spend more than $25 million to “expand and strengthen” the primary industry advisory sector to ensure farmers and growers have access to the highest quality farm planning, support and advice.

The new scheme will fund training of farm advisers, with successful applicants able to receive up to $22,500 per year. The scheme aims to train up to 40 students with primary sector advisory experience to help farmers in the uptake of integrated farm planning.

This will see employers hiring new advisers, or upskilling existing staff, receiving “up to” $22,500 annually per adviser to help cover salary and training costs. Meanwhile, farm advisory businesses will be helped to provide “up to” 40 students with experience in the advisory sector.

“The Government is backing farmers and growers to adapt and innovate with a package of support to strengthen the rural advisory sector,” O’Connor crowed.

All well and good. On the face of it, it all seems like a positive thing for the sector.  However, one only needs to dig a little deeper to see the application of these new glorified box tickers of government-implemented red tape and regulations on the farming sector is not universal.

Of course, as is this Government’s wont, the new advisory scheme will focus on “growing the diversity”… “with an emphasis on attracting more women and Māori into roles”.

How about just recruiting the best qualified people for these jobs – no matter what their gender or race is? If this was the case, then perhaps O’Connor’s claim about “building the capacity and capability of advisory services to enable food and fibre producers to access quality support and advice” might actually be believable.

Why is this scheme giving priority “to initiatives that support Māori landowners and agribusinesses”?

Surely supporting “the uptake of integrated farm planning to make meeting consumer, market, environmental, and business needs easier and less time-consuming” should be for all for farmers and growers in NZ?

In fact, O’Connor’s own SOPI report shows revenue from NZ food and fibre exports is predicted to hit a record $50 billion in the year to 30 June 2022; that’s all of NZ’s primary sector – not just a certain Government-favoured part of it.