Better together!

IT APPEARS the gloves have well and truly come off between rural ginger lobby Groundswell and the establishment ag-sector bodies.

To be fair, the mere existence and growth of the Groundswell movement shows there has been – and for some time – a growing vacuum in the rural advocacy space between the establishment and grassroots farming.

Farmers have been increasingly unhappy with the leadership (or lack thereof) by their industry-good bodies, especially in the perceived lack of pushback from them to the current Government’s growing list of regulations it wants to impose on the agriculture sector.

Both DairyNZ and Beef+Lamb NZ – and to a much lesser extent, Federated Farmers – have argued that it is ‘better to be at the table’ than not there at all. However, many farmers would contend that all their leadership has done is serve them up on the menu when ‘at the table’. There is some merit in both arguments.

However, what cannot be disputed is that Groundswell has grown from nothing into a powerful lobby in just 18 months. This was clearly evidenced by the huge turnout of people up and down the country at last year’s ‘Howl of a Protest’.

Recent bickering between Groundswell and current sector representatives is unhelpful and only helps with the Government’s ‘divide and rule’ strategy for the rural sector.

Both sides need to pull their heads in and realise that the rural sector fighting amongst itself does us no favours.

The current ag sector leadership really does need to look at the way it has ‘represented’ farmers over recent years. It needs to seriously ask why such dissent and unhappiness is rife in the rural hinterland and who are they serving – their farmer levypayers or their own political fortunes.

Meanwhile, Groundswell must look at how it can realistically achieve for the sector. Constantly bad mouthing farm sector leaders and throwing stones at everything they do may garner good headlines, but it does nothing for sector unity.

Robust debate and disagreement is good, but this should be all done behind closed doors. What the sector needs now is a united, strong voice arguing for the betterment of NZ agriculture. Not division and infighting, which only leads to all farmers losing.

We are better together.

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Not so fast!

PREDICTIONS THAT NZ’s farming sector is in for a bumper year need to be put into context.

While many primary sectors – including dairy, horticulture and red meat – are experiencing record commodity prices, a number of factors are leading to some even bigger cost increases, which will mean less on-farm profitability.

As Rabobank NZ’s analyst Emma Higgins recently opined, “Rocketing input costs and crimped production in some regions will not translate into new benchmark profits”.

This is due to a number of reasons: the ongoing impact of Covid, the war in the Ukraine, growing inflation and the imposition of government-imposed regulations – to name just a few.

Covid has already led to huge logistical logjams, raising costs and reducing our ability to export products. The current wave of Omicron is impacting on workplaces, with meat processing plants, dairy factories, farms and orchards – already struggling for labour – now at serious risk of not being able to harvest or process product.

Mr Putin’s maniacal desire to recreate the old Soviet Union has not only rained disaster on the innocent people of the Ukraine, but also led to huge increases in global fertiliser and oil prices – both major farm input costs.

Meanwhile, the Ardern government’s myopic desire to handicap the country’s biggest export sector (that will pay off the huge debts it has run up during Covid) with more regulation and feel-good environmental policies is only going to add to growing on-farm costs.

All of this means that the price of farm inputs is likely to remain elevated for the foreseeable future, with any lift in commodity prices eaten away by the rapacious beast that is inflation.

Farmers face greater regulation and costs for fresh water, climate change and biodiversity policies that the Government is about to introduce. While still unclear, back of the envelope calculations put the cost for the average farmer’s GHG emissions alone at $7,000 a year – and quickly growing every year after that. This cost will come from every farmer’s bottom-line – and that is just the beginning.

So, it’s great that commodity prices are at high levels, but as Higgins has warns, don’t pop the champagne corks just yet!

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Better together!

IT APPEARS the gloves have well and truly come off between rural ginger lobby Groundswell and the establishment ag-sector bodies.

To be fair, the mere existence and growth of the Groundswell movement shows there has been – and for some time – a growing vacuum in the rural advocacy space between the establishment and grassroots farming.

Farmers have been increasingly unhappy with the leadership (or lack thereof) by their industry-good bodies, especially in the perceived lack of pushback from them to the current Government’s growing list of regulations it wants to impose on the agriculture sector.

Both DairyNZ and Beef+Lamb NZ – and to a much lesser extent, Federated Farmers – have argued that it is ‘better to be at the table’ than not there at all. However, many farmers would contend that all their leadership has done is serve them up on the menu when ‘at the table’. There is some merit in both arguments.

However, what cannot be disputed is that Groundswell has grown from nothing into a powerful lobby in just 18 months. This was clearly evidenced by the huge turnout of people up and down the country at last year’s ‘Howl of a Protest’.

Recent bickering between Groundswell and current sector representatives is unhelpful and only helps with the Government’s ‘divide and rule’ strategy for the rural sector.

Both sides need to pull their heads in and realise that the rural sector fighting amongst itself does us no favours.

The current ag sector leadership really does need to look at the way it has ‘represented’ farmers over recent years. It needs to seriously ask why such dissent and unhappiness is rife in the rural hinterland and who are they serving – their farmer levypayers or their own political fortunes.

Meanwhile, Groundswell must look at how it can realistically achieve for the sector. Constantly bad mouthing farm sector leaders and throwing stones at everything they do may garner good headlines, but it does nothing for sector unity.

Robust debate and disagreement is good, but this should be all done behind closed doors. What the sector needs now is a united, strong voice arguing for the betterment of NZ agriculture. Not division and infighting, which only leads to all farmers losing.

We are better together.

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Out of gas?

SOON NZ’s farming sector will be lumbered with more costs as it begins paying for the agricultural emissions.

To most observers, the work done by groups involved with the He Waka Eke Noa (HWEN) has been all about the way farmers will eventually pay (i.e. be taxed) for their emissions. Precious little seems to have been progressed about how agricultural emissions can actually be reduced.

Serious questions need to be asked of the HWEN proponents – ag sector leaders and the Government – about the woeful lack of action in developing workable technologies that help lower NZ’s agricultural emissions.

According to its own publicity, the Pastoral Greenhouse Gas Research Consortium (PGgRc) exists to ‘provide knowledge and tools for New Zealand farmers so they can mitigate greenhouse gas emissions from the agricultural sector’.

Despite this organisation being funded by the very same agricultural sector partners and Government as HWEN, no mention was of made of tools to help farmers mitigate their emissions in the recent round of ‘consultation’ meetings held by the latter. In fact, HWEN’s 31-page discussion document outlining its proposals, released late last year, makes only a very scant reference to mitigation tools.

That’s an appalling dereliction of duty by both ag industry leaders, regulators and the Government, who seem only too happy to burden the country’s key export earner with a new tax but have done nothing tangible to provide farmers with tools to reduce their emissions.

This is made worse by that the fact adoption of methane inhibitors in other parts of the world has significantly reduced agricultural emissions of methane. Recently the EU approved the methane-reduction feed tool Bovaer for use by its farmers. This product has the potential to slash methane emissions by up to 30%. The product has also been approved for use in Brazil and Chile and a commercial launch in Australia is also expected this year.

Meanwhile, Rural News understand the NZ trial of another product, which offers similar reductions in livestock methane emissions, had to be abandoned – and the product destroyed – due to the failure of regulators and MPI to have the necessary rules in place so it could go ahead.

Surely if NZ’s ag industry leadership were actually leaders, they would have done something about this abject failure by regulators and government to help farmers mitigate their emissions?

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Time for honesty

AS THE round of He Waka Eke Noa (HWEN) farmer ‘consultation’ meetings continue around the country, cracks seem to be appearing in the voices tasked with promoting its options of tackling farm emissions.
HWEN was established – including its politically-correct, fatuous name – by the industry in an effort to placate the Government that was hell-bent on forcing farming into the Emission Trading Scheme. Late last year, HWEN produced three options, which it is now consulting on: on-farm pricing, a hybrid processor model, and the third, or backstop, option – putting agricultural greenhouse gas emissions into the ETS.

However, like all forced partnerships, and good ideas in theory, HWEN’s unity appears to be cracking. It is becoming increasingly clear that both Beef+Lamb NZ and DairyNZ are banging the jungle drums for an interim processor levy and then transitioning to an on-farm levy. Both organisations have strenuously argued that the primary sector being included in the ETS is the ‘worst’ option.

Meanwhile, Federated Farmers – always a less enthusiastic member of the HWEN partnership – is at a crossroads and could pull out from the partnership, with reports of a special meeting this week to consider exactly this.

Feds president Andrew Hoggard recently wrote, “before decisions are made around price settings and price-mechanism design, farmers and industry groups truly must understand the impacts of such decisions.”

In other words, will the options proposed actually see overall reductions in world emissions.

Many farmers – and others – argue that the Paris Agreement made multiple mentions on needing to make emissions reductions but not at the cost of food production. But HWEN proponents are now claiming this only referred to third world countries and not developed economies like NZ.

However, the Paris Agreement is clear on this point, with a priority of “safeguarding food security and ending hunger…” and an article committing signatories to climate adaptation and emissions mitigation “… in a manner that does not threaten food production”.

NZ agriculture has world-leading greenhouse gas footprints. If we reduce our production to meet emissions targets, it will only encourage other countries with higher emissions to fill the gap. The result: world emissions will go up, not down. As Hoggard argues, “That’s a poor outcome for all, global consumers, the New Zealand economy and the atmosphere”.

It is time the HWEN proponents finally got honest and admitted it is being forced to placate current government political demands. Nothing more, nothing less.

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Mixed messages!

FARMERS AND growers can rightly feel somewhat confused about the mixed messaging coming from the Government about the risks to the sector from Omicron.

On the one hand, last week Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor announced that the Government had allocated $400,000 to support primary producers for contingency planning and response if farmers or growers get Covid-19.

“The Government is committed to keeping vital workforces going. Primary producers have always been essential workers throughout the pandemic, but as Omicron reaches further into our communities, we are stepping up to ensure we can protect the wellbeing of our rural communities,” the Minister claimed.

“Contingency planning by farmers, growers and lifestyle block owners will minimise the risk of further Covid-19 related disruptions, which can occur anywhere along the supply chain.”

Fine. This is a sensible move considering the importance of the primary sector to the economy of New Zealand.

However, at the very same time O’Connor – along with Climate Change Minister James Shaw – are insisting that farmers and growers attend public consultations over the He Waka Eke Noa (HWEN) climate proposals. This is despite the arrival of the highly contagious Omicron Covid variant in the country and the potential health risks to farmers, who are deemed essential workers – not to mention the restrictions on public meetings under the red light traffic settings making ‘consultation’ hardly extensive and widespread.

Even the belated move by the Government to extend the consultation period for a month does little to lessen the health risk, especially when the peak of Omicron is expected to hit the country about then and is set to disrupt New Zealanders for months to come.

If the Government really is keen to ensure full and proper consultation (on what Beef+Lamb NZ chairman Andrew Morrison has described as “one of the most important issues for farmers in 2022”), giving farmers right across the country the opportunity to meet face-to-face with representatives to ask questions about the HWEN proposals, it should be put on hold until proper meetings and consultation can take place.

A cynic could be forgiven for thinking that this consultation process is mere window dressing. This latest move does nothing to shift the view that the Government’s mind is already made up on this issue and its ideological drive to pass climate change legislation within strict deadlines has overridden the imperative of full, proper and safe consultation with farmers.

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Not just hot air!

OVER THE next couple of months, farmers will be invited to have their say on He Waka Eke Noa (HWEN) – the agreement between the Government and primary sector to tackle farm emissions – which could well be the most important thing they do in 2022.

Late last year, the sponsors of HWEN – DairyNZ, Beef+Lamb NZ and Federated Farmers – released two options for pricing farm emissions. These will be taken out to farmers next month. The two options are either an ‘at the farm levy’ or a ‘processor/hybrid levy’.

Agriculture is already slated to join the ETS. However, the sector has been given 100% free allocation up until 2025. After that, it will be included at 95%, decreasing 1% per year until 2030 and then be entirely included by 2050.

The only alternative to this is what has been proposed through HWEN. If the industry can agree on a system that encourages a reduction in farm emissions  (methane, nitrous oxide and carbon), the Government says it will consider it. However, if there is no agreement, then the backstop is the Government fully including agriculture in the ETS.

That will be costly. The ETS is linked to the carbon price determined by other sectors of the economy, which is already starting to soar.

So just how will farmers react to HWEN and its proposals to tackle looming carbon emissions regulation and targets for the agricultural sector? Already the likes of Greenpeace, Forest and Bird and Green Party activists (many of whom are the very same people) are already labelling HWEN too weak and claiming that it lets the farm sector ‘off the hook’.

That’s absolute rubbish. But this is what the industry is up against; puritanical climate zealots who falsely believe that destroying agriculture will save the planet.

Industry leaders take plenty of stick, but advocating for the split-gas approach (treating methane separately to long-lived gases) and the opportunity to develop a sector solution via HWEN is not all bad in today’s political climate.

The consultation process over this is not hot air – it is vital. Ensure you take part, listen to all the options, then have your say!

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Stronger advocacy!

AS 2021 draws to a close, most farmers will be looking forward to it ending and hoping for better things in 2022.

Strong commodity prices and good growing conditions, on the whole, have meant a reasonable year for most of the country’s farmers and growers. However, the continuing impact of Covid, soaring input costs, labour shortages and ever growing regulation continued to steal much of the shine off good prices.

During the year, for the first time in a generation, farmers and rural people in their tens of thousands took to the streets in towns and cities – not once but twice – up and down New Zealand to express their concerns and consternation about where things are going for people living in the country. All at a time of near record milk payouts, horticulture and red meat returns.

Surely this points to something seriously wrong going on. However, those in the Government, bureaucracy and parts of our farming leadership appear either oblivious or downright scornful of this justified farmer angst.

Much of the blame for this can be fairly sheeted home to the levy bodies, which seem to have made little to no effort to get proper farmer mandates before taking their advocacy positions.

It seems their desire to “be at the table” to share drinks and canapés with current Government ministers has taken priority over properly advocating for their farmer levypayers. These organisations have pretty much ‘lost the room’ with regards to grassroots farmer support and hence the emergence of an outfit like Groundswell. One suspects that the information the Prime Minister is currently refusing to release about that rural lobby group has been garnered from sources within these levy bodies and is highly derisory.

It will be interesting to see how those bodies react if the looming carbon emissions regulation and targets for the agricultural sector are roundly rejected by their levypayers during the rounds of consultation early next year. Will they kowtow to the Government – as they have over the past four years – or finally stand up and fight for what farmers demand?

Despite this, they have shown some backbone in advocating for the split-gas approach (treating methane separately to long-lived gases) and the opportunity to develop a sector solution in He Waka Eka Noa. It’s a pity their chosen moniker appears to be more about ticking cultural boxes rather than showing farmers how the sector is trying to come up with viable solutions.

Roll on 2022 and better, stronger sector advocacy!

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A good question

AS THE country endures yet another lockdown in the battle against Covid, a nasty undercurrent appears to be rearing its head.

It is not mass dissent in the streets and people deliberately flouting the rules. In fact, the vast majority of New Zealand’s population has been remarkably compliant and done the right thing.

Despite the overall – health – success of the country’s fight against Covid, there are genuine questions about aspects of the Government’s response. Be that the leaky border, the awful rate of the vaccine rollout, concerns about vaccine supply, the economic damage of lockdowns and just exactly how truthful the information we’re getting during the daily sermon – 1 pm press conferences – from the ‘pulpit of truth’.

However, when anyone does pose such questions they tend to be shouted down – usually by self-important, partisan critics on social media with too much time on their hands – for not being part of the ‘team of 5 million’ or ‘playing politics’ with peoples’ lives.

The reality is that if these same critics believe that the Government is not ‘playing politics’ with the way it is handling the Covid response, they are either naïve or being deliberately deceptive. All governments are political!

Unfortunately, a similar undercurrent of shouting down genuine criticism seems to be occurring in the agriculture sector.

Even blind Freddy can see that many of the rules and regulations currently being imposed or proposed on the farming sector from government are neither practical nor workable. Industry bodies claim they are ‘working’ with the Government and need to be ‘at the table’ so that can effect change. That is well and good. But this does, and should, not stop questions and criticisms of the efforts and success of these bodies getting practical and workable changes.

Yet, we see self-professed ‘experts’ and ‘professionals’— usually not farmers and with little or no skin in the game – criticising those who dare to ask such questions.

What is this about?

It is a sad state of affairs when debate and discussion in our sector is being shut down because it does not suit some peoples’ agendas. Surely we live in a democracy, not some dictatorship ruled by keyboard warriors and so-called industry authorities?

In fact, questioning and debate is the sign of a strong, vibrant and health sector. Long may it continue.

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Read the fine print!

On the face of it, the recent free trade deal announced with the United Kingdom appears to be a big win for New Zealand’s farming sector.

Plaudits have, rightly, been heaped on the NZ negotiators from all sections of the NZ farming landscape. There is little doubt that they were able to take advantage of the UK’s desire to secure new trade deals in the wake of Brexit and its keenness to join the CPTPP to gain a favourable result. Good on them!

While the deal is still only an ‘agreement in principle’, when it does come into fruition the opportunities for NZ’s primary sector look very good. The deal sees a mix of instant access and transition periods for many our key agricultural goods. It’s been predicted that the deal could be worth a billion a year to NZ when it comes into full force

Red meat producers may be somewhat disappointed with the long lead-in time to full access to the UK, but the reality was this was always going to be tough to get over the line.

With a significant increase in New Zealand agricultural exports to Britain likely as a result of the deal, the reaction from UK farmers has been predictable. We have already seen its Red Tractor food assurance scheme make false claims about some of the animal welfare and quality issues of NZ farm produce compared to its British equivalents. Meanwhile, National Farmers Union president  Minette Batters has claimed that UK farm businesses face significantly higher costs of production than farmers in New Zealand and Australia.

It is on this note that NZ farmers will want to carefully read the actual details of the deal when it is finally published. British farmers currently face a number of severe bureaucratic regulatory restrictions in the way they farm – so watch out for similar restrictive practices and stipulations weaved into the fine print of this deal.

If NZ farmers currently think the proposed climate change, freshwater, biosecurity and animal welfare (etc, etc) regulations they are currently getting dished up are tough, then just wait to see what our negotiators have promised the Brits in this deal.

Remember, when something looks far too good to be true, it usually is!

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