Write Here,Right Now

FOR MORE than a year now the primary sector has been crying out for changes around immigration settings to help ease numerous critical worker shortages right across the country’s key export earning industries.

The Government and immigration officials have badly dropped the ball on this issue – with the entire country is paying for their incompetence.

There is no doubt that things have been complicated by Covid-19 and the ongoing restrictions this has placed on allowing people into the country. However, governments are elected – and officials employed and well paid – to come up with solutions to such problems. Yet the piecemeal, ad-hoc, minimal changes made by both in this area are a national disgrace.

For starters, Immigration Minister Kris Faafoi has been completely MIA – that’s ‘missing in action’, not the Meat Industry Association, which is probably keen to chat to him on immigration issues, as is the rest of the primary sector. He is clearly either out of his depth or not interested and the Prime Minister should have relieved him of the portfolio months ago. One suspects that because her caucus has all the depth of the bird bath, and any capable minister is already overloaded, there is no one with the talent to manage or oversee this highly challenging role.

And the problem is getting worse, as not only is the dairy industry not able to get workers from overseas, it’s losing some of its existing workforce to countries such as Australia and Canada who are offering better visa deals for migrant workers.

This is leading to some frankly stupid decisions being made – like visa applications for desperately needed migrant dairy workers being declined over a contentious 40-hour working week requirement imposed by the Government.

Jason Herrick, Southland Federated Farmers sharemilker section chair, summed it up well in a letter to Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor calling for immediate government action.

“You all had the opportunity to stem the flow of staff leaving our industry and stop other countries coming in here and offering them what you continuously refuse to,” he wrote. “Using the excuse that it’s keeping New Zealanders safe on one hand, and then allowing entertainers, sports personalities, and movie producers, cast and crew into the country through our MIQ facilities, and safely do so, then why can’t this be replicated for our split migrant families and essential workers?”

The very same question can be asked about rural contractors, shearers, vets and many others – and we deserve an answer.

RURAL NZ is again getting the rough end of the stick when it comes to services – this time in relation to Covid-19 vaccinations.

It appears the boffins at the Ministry of Health and the Government’s Wellington-centric, top-down Covid-19 vaccination rollout programme is leaving rural New Zealanders as the poor cousins compared to their urban counterparts. No surprises there.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand that unlike urban centres, many rural New Zealanders have to travel a long way to get to a city-based vaccination outlet. Meanwhile, with most in rural NZ classed as essential workers getting a vaccination during the day has also proven difficult.

Dunedin School of Medicine research has found that rural Covid-19 vaccination rates are more than 10% behind urban rates. The University of Otago data has found the number of people who had at least one dose of the vaccine was 11% lower in rural areas and up to 19% lower in remote rural areas compared to major metropolitan centres.

As New Zealand Rural General Practice Network chief executive Dr Grant Davidson points out these inequities are expected, but still worrying.

“What is most concerning is that it confirms that the productive rural backbone of our country is significantly at risk. Due to a lack of accessibility in rural New Zealand, it is no surprise that rural populations are lagging in vaccination rates.”

Many rural employers have taken things into their own hands to try combat the hurdles their workers face in trying to get a jab.

While not making it mandatory, Fonterra has strongly encouraged it employees to get vaccinated. It has been offering workplace vaccination clinics at it sites across the country, through which more than 7500 vaccinations had been administered to its 11,000 staff.

A number of meat companies have also offered workplace vaccinations and Zespri is also encouraging its staff to get vaccinated.

Federated Farmers has been telling farmers they should do all they can to enable and encourage their staff to get vaccinations.

Meanwhile, some rural and regional health boards have taken it upon themselves to take vaccinations out to the country, by setting up rural mobile vaccination clinics and travelling out to farms and shearing gangs to deliver jabs.

Feds employment spokesman Chris Lewis sums it up well: “The sooner we get everyone double-vaccinated, the sooner we might safely take steps to getting back to where we were with travel, events and all the rest.”

MORE AND more farmers around the country are doing the right things in regard to environmental management.

Recent reports by a number of regional councils around NZ show positive results when it comes to managing effluent on farms. Meanwhile, despite winter grazing practices across the country coming under the microscope, there have been few reports of major breaches of the regulations. This is even more remarkable considering the flooding experienced in some regions.

For years, governments, councils, environmentalists, activists et el have been pushing for the agricultural sector to lift its environmental game. The evidence shows that farmers are responding and responding well!

However, anyone reading, listening or viewing mainstream media in NZ could be forgiven for thinking that the opposite is occurring. Every sector has its slackers, those who are not doing the right things, and farming is no exception. The industry, including farmers themselves, must continue to come down hard on those who let the whole sector down.

NZ’s agriculture sector cannot, and should not, tolerate farmers whose actions put our international reputation at risk. They either need to lift their game immediately or get out of farming. Despite, these laggards being a very minor part of the industry, the damage they do is huge. But it has to be remembered they are a very small – and shrinking – minority.

However, such incidents need to put into perspective and not be used as a stick to beat the whole agricultural sector with. Does the media label the entire teaching profession ‘sex pests’ when a couple of teachers are exposed for having inappropriate relationships with pupils or the legal sector corrupt when a rogue lawyer or two embezzles their clients’ funds?

As Waikato farmer Andrew McGiven says, these positive results reflects the great work farmers have been doing around environmental sustainability. 

“It would be great to have these good news stories being promoted more through other media outlets, instead of the normal farmer papers.”

NZ farmers and the wider agricultural sector can take a bow for the work they are doing on the environmental front. While the work is not finished, and it never will be, there is a good story to be told – it is just a pity some media refuse to tell it!

DESPITE CLOGGING up traffic in towns and cities throughout NZ, the recent Groundswell NZ protest gained huge support from onlookers and the public.

Organisers can take a bow. This was a massive turnout that was well supported, well managed and generally respectful (except for a couple of outliers).

Attempts by critics – mainly urban liberals, government apparatchiks and ticket clippers on social media – to label it as just a ‘ute tax’ protest have failed miserably. Fair-minded people saw a group of New Zealanders expressing their utter exasperation and legitimate complaints about the way their sector is being mistreated. That message has been delivered loud and clear.

There is now talk of another protest on August 16; let’s hope that is just talk. A soufflé does not rise twice, and Groundswell NZ needs to ensure the goodwill and support of the country has for farmers isn’t lost by overdoing the protest thing.

Meanwhile, although not unexpected, Labour MPs – especially those supposedly representing rural and provincial NZ – were conspicuous by their absence. These same MPs, who were only too happy to run around at Fieldays this year fighting over who would carry the PM’s handbag, did not have the guts to front up to their constituents.

Rural and provincial NZ will remember this and vote accordingly in 2023. Surely a Member of Parliament’s job is to hear electorates’ concerns – even if they don’t like them – and report these back to the powers-that-be.

Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor was another unsurprising no show, his weasel words claiming that ‘plenty of farmers’ support the Government’s direction is about as accurate as a leaky rain gauge.

The other question farmers should be asking is why organisations like Fonterra, Beef+Lamb NZ, DairyNZ and the big rural retailers reportedly sent out directives telling staff not to take part in these protests.

As Morrinsville organiser Lloyd Downing says: “They seem happy to be in the tent looking out… perhaps they should be outside with the people who pay their wages and throw a few bombs into the tent.”

It’s clear where the loyalties of the leaders of these outfits lie, and it is not with farmers who pay their huge director fees.

Farmers need to decide if these organisations really have their best interests at heart. The evidence so far is debatable.

THE COUNTRY’S farmers are feeling disregarded, discontented, disrespected and disgruntled.

On July 16, in more than 40 towns and cities (at the time of writing) around NZ, farmers will descend on to their main streets in their utes and tractors to express their utter exasperation with government, bureaucrats, mainstream media – even their own sector leadership.

This farmer angst has been building for more than a year, so the aptly-named Groundswell protests could well be the biggest show of farmer discontent in this country since the protests held at the height of the economic reforms of the 1980s.

How has it come to this? One would have thought that with record dairy prices, a strong red meat outlook and a booming horticulture sector, those on the land would be happy. However, that is far from the case.

In the past couple of years, an avalanche of regulation has been, or is about to be, dumped on the sector, including freshwater reforms, climate change legislation, biodiversity rules, a lack of access to overseas workers and most recently the ute tax.

Despite claims by the Government that they “value” the primary sector and how it almost single-handedly helped the country pay its bills in the aftermath of Covid, many farmers find this hard to reconcile this with the extra red-tape, costs and regulation it keeps imposing on them.

There is also considerable disquiet among farmers about their industry leaders continually acquiescing to government. These same farming bodies’ dismissal of long-held farmer concerns – while they talk behind closed doors in Wellington – has left a vacuum for groups like Groundswell to fill.

Already, government apparatchiks, mainstream media and so-called farming leaders are either dismissing this angst and upcoming protest as misguided or labelling it as farmers not wanting to play their part on environmental issues.

One can guarantee that on July 16, every TV news camera will focus on the one abusive placard in the crowd, or a yokel who makes an outrageous non-woke statement, rather than covering the real reasons behind the protests.

Organisers need to ensure that these protests are clear, concise, respectful and that any silly signs or plonkers are kept well away from sight.

Is anyone listening?

BUDGET 2021, for the primary and rural sector, was basically a non-event.
While disappointing, it was not surprising.
One would have thought that as the primary sector led and continues to lead NZ out of the Covid economic crisis we face, the people running the country would show more interest in it. As Federated Farmers says: it is the agriculture sector that bankrolled the Budget’s “big spending”.
Mind you, the last thing the farming sector needs is more government interference. It is already feeling the negative impacts of this in the form of freshwater reforms, winter grazing rules, carbon taxation and the refusal to budge on allowing in more migrant workers into the country.
Some have rather irreverently termed last month’s Budget as ‘The Bludget’ – in reference to the $3.5 billion handed out by the Government in benefit top-ups. While it might be a little churlish to begrudge those at the bottom of the ladder some financial relief, it says something about the current Government’s mindset and priorities when it is more focused on redistributing the country’s wealth than growing it!
The only thing of real interest to the primary sector was the $60 million (over four years) that was allocated towards lowering agricultural emissions and developing a national farm planning system. This included $37m towards national integrated farm planning system for farmers and growers, $24m towards agricultural greenhouse gas mitigation research and development, and $900,000 to collect vital statistics on agricultural production, such as greenhouse gas emissions.
DairyNZ has rightly described Budget 2021 as a missed opportunity with nothing new or transformational for farmers or rural communities. DairyNZ’s Jenny Cameron says there was “very little new funding” to help farmers improve the environment work they were already doing on-farm.
She also points to no investment in initiatives to help build resilience in rural communities – particularly digital connectivity, biosecurity and rural mental health, describing the $10m investment over four years for increased rural digital connectivity as “a drop in the bucket” and falling well short of what was needed.
On the rural health front, there was nothing – despite the increasing incidence of mental health and other issues affecting the rural sector. As the New Zealand Rural General Practice Network says, there was nothing in the Budget to address the ‘post code lottery’ where the treatment is determined by where you live – despite the fact that “20% of the population who have a rural delivery postcode face problems in getting the health care they need”.
Despite there being no real recognition of the primary sector in Budget 2021, farmers and growers will keep on producing and building the wealth the country desperately needs.

“WHERE THE bloody hell are you?”

This was once the infamous catch-cry of an Australian tourism advertisement from a few years ago.

However, it could now equally used by NZ farmers to question the performance (or lack of it) by their industry representatives – especially when advocating on their behalf at a governmental level.

Two of the sector’s largest agri-sector industry-good bodies – DairyNZ and Beef+Lamb NZ – take multi-millions of dollars in farmer levies each year, yet levypayers are fairly asking what they are actually getting in return.

No doubt, both organisations would use their highly-paid communications staff and contractors to run off a myriad of actions claiming they do a wonderful job in representing their respective farmers on the advocacy, trade and on-farm front.

One could debate their effectiveness or not on the two latter topics, but most farmers would say they have been hopelessly woeful on the former.

In the last couple of years alone, we have seen government either propose or impose carbon charges, freshwater regulations, winter grazing rules, farm environment plans and ban live exports – to name just a few.

All of these have either been greeted by muted acceptance or actually welcomed by the supposed farmer bodies. Both DairyNZ and B+LNZ argue that it’s no use jumping up and down and they “have to be at the table” for the Government to hear them. However, many of their levypayers would argue all this has done is help the Government serve farmers on the menu!

As farmer Jane Smith argues, “continual appeasement to government by industry-good bodies is not serving the sector well and it’s time for a mega-merger of primary sector advocacy groups”. All this has opened the door for movements like Groundswell NZ to fill the gap.

Smith cites the recent performances of both B+LNZ and DairyNZ over the reforms to freshwater regulations and proposed greenhouse gas rules as leaving farmer levypayers dismayed, disappointed and feeling abandoned by their representatives.

Is it now time to scrap the old model of farmer representation – which the Government seems to play divide and rule with – and for the primary sector to form one, powerful, united voice for industry advocacy that would have to be listened to rather than dictated at?

It is worth serious consideration.

MOVES BY the Government to end New Zealand’s live export trade is more about politics than ethics.

Sure, it argues that the trade “does not uphold New Zealand’s reputation for high standards of animal welfare” and that is does not fit with the country’s “social conscience”. But that is just – to coin a phrase used by Gulf War veteran General Norman Schwarzkopf – bovine scatology.

These claims do not marry with the actual facts. The reality is that the Government is shutting down a legitimate a $500 million trade because it polls well to ban it.  The screaming skulls from the likes of SAFE, Greenpeace and other so-called animal activist groups have got in the Government’s ear and won them over by feeding constant, unchallenged misinformation about the live export trade to the public.

David Hayman, spokesman for Animal Genetics Trade Association, is right on the money when he describes the Government’s decision as one that is aiming for short-term political kudos.

Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor’s mealy-mouthed concession that the decision “will affect some farmers, exporters and importers…” 

Claims made by critics of the trade that animals suffer and there are high deaths rates are not borne out by the facts. Transportation of animals from New Zealand is governed by the strictest animal welfare standards in the world. The welfare of each travelling animal is independently verified by vets on behalf of Ministry for Primary Industries, with 99.9% of animals arriving at their destinations in healthy condition.

South Island-based livestock broker Peter Walsh, who has vast experience in the trade, says the ships animals travel from NZ on are professionally run and well manned with high veterinary support. Even O’Connor concedes, “improvements had been made to the practice over recent years”.

Unfortunately, the live export trade has suffered from constant misinformation fed to the public by the likes of SAFE and Greenpeace and the Government has listened to them.

Hayman sums it up correctly when he says, “This is an ill-informed, massively consequential decision for the nation, to earn short-term political brownie points from a few activists.”

Sad, but true. That’s political expediency for you.

FINALLY THE Government has made a sensible move to temporarily pause the implementation of the impractical rules that accompany its proposed regulations on winter grazing.
Last week Environment Minister David Parker and Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor announced a temporary delay, until 1 May 2022, of intensive winter grazing (IWG) rules taking effect.
For months farmers, industry groups and councils around the country have highlighted the unworkability of the rules and that numerous issues need to be addressed. Hopefully, this extra time will ensure that both politicians and bureaucrats will now listen to the real concerns of farmers and councils, and implement rules that will actually work to benefit the environment and farming.
It is unbelievable that despite empirical evidence about how the IWG rules, that were part of the Essential Freshwater legislation passed in August last year, had a number of unworkable parts, ministers and bureaucrats took so long to act. This ‘we know best’ attitude needs to change as it is a huge hindrance to making any real progress in improving the country’s water.
Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor has admitted that “over-reach” by Wellington officials and a desire by the Government to have the rules in place prior to last year’s election is an indictment. It shows that it placed far more importance on electioneering and pandering to green-tinged urban voters, than ensuring practical, workable rules would be implemented that actually would improve environmental outcomes.
It has taken the outstanding work of the Southland Winter Grazing Advisory Group, made up of a number of farming and environmental groups, to provide a comprehensive report to the ministers outlining a better way forward. Thankfully, the Government has finally listened.
This pause in the IWG rules, allows for a proper opportunity to ensure that the final regulations and provisions are practical and workable for farmers, councils and regulators to achieve the environmental outcomes everybody wants to see.

BEEF+LAMB NZ and the NZ Meat Board’s annual meeting, to be held in Invercargill on March 17, is likely to be a more fiery affair than the usual.

Chair Andrew Morrison and his fellow directors will find themselves under the gun from levypayers over a resolution on the agenda to substantially increase director fees for both Beef+Lamb and the Meat Board.

As Morrison has conceded, “directors’ fees are always closely scrutinised” and you can bet it will be a hot topic of discussion at the meeting.

It can be argued, and Morrison vigorously has, that the proposed increase in director remuneration is justifiable. However, one can seriously question both the process and optics in the way the board has made its decision.

The disestablishment of the Directors Independent Remuneration Committee (DIRC), an independent body that recommends any changes in director remuneration, looks self-serving. The DIRC was established under previous chair James Parsons and was a sound move bringing Beef+Lamb NZ in line with how many other farmer-owned organisations operate – including DairyNZ and Fonterra.

Morrison claims the board decided to do away with the DIRC because the directors agreed that the best approach was for themselves to actively take ownership of remuneration recommendations.

Really?

Meanwhile, the argument that the board sought ‘independent advice’ on the fee increases also rings hollow. The board hired consultants – at what price, they refuse to say – who then proceeded to recommend a healthy pay increase for directors. It is hard to view this advice as very ‘independent’.

Then we get to the actual director fee increases themselves. The Meat Board alone sees a 38% jump in the chair’s annual remuneration and a 23% increase in all the other directors’ fees. On what planet do Morrison and company reside if they think that kind of hike is appropriate?

How many sheep and beef farmers are expecting an increase in income of 23% this year?

For Morrison to try and justify this leap in remuneration because of the ‘increase in workload’ for directors is laughable.

Directors who get voted on to organisations should know what kind the commitment they need to make. If directors on a public company claimed that ‘increased in workload’ justified them a 20%-plus pay increase, there would be blood on the floor of the annual meeting. Beef and sheep levypayers must – and should – send a clear signal to the directors and the meat industry by voting down these excessive director fee increases.