THE NEW dairy industry accord designed to clean up waterways has been hailed by industry, councils and farmers, but it has drawn only lukewarm support from environmental groups.

The accord sets national environmental benchmarks for dairy farming, covering stock exclusion from waterways and riparian, effluent, nutrient and water use management. It also sets out new industry standards for conversions of land to dairying.

Most of the nation’s 13,000 dairy farmers are covered by the accord, which has the support of Fonterra, Open Country, Tatua, Synlait and Miraka and industry body DairyNZ, while Federated Farmers and 15 regional councils have signed on as ‘friends’.

Many from the local government and the regulatory sector describe it as an excellent mechanism for environmental improvements, unlikely to make farmers’ lives difficult farmers or to bankrupt them. It draws on the consensus approach to water management implemented by the Land and Water Forum.

The accord is not perfect and the last-minute decision by Westland Milk Products not to be a partner is a blow. Hopefully, Westland’s issues can be sorted quickly as an ‘all-in’ method by the dairy industry to water quality management is far better than a piecemeal, company-by-company approach.

Despite this hiccup, the accord is another positive step forward for the dairy sector and water quality in New Zealand and a long way ahead of where it was 10, 15 or even 20 years ago.

But you wouldn’t know this listening to the typically negative response from Fish & Game NZ. It described the new accord as a “mixed blessing” that did not contain enough positives for the lobby group to sign up to. It says while it is heading in the right direction, progress was far too slow and the public expected more.

Fish & Game has an important role as an environmental watchdog. However, it’s incessant and negative carping about the dairy sector makes it sound like a dog that barks and chases car tyres, but not much else. These animals usually don’t stay around long and unless Fish & Game changes its obvious anti-farming modus operandi, it too will come across as all yap and no substance.

Federated Farmers Nelson spokesman Martin O’Connor summed up its response well when he said the lobby “was never happy and ignored the fact farmers had spent huge amounts on environmental compliance in recent years.” As O’Connor adroitly added: “… It’s hard to farm green, when you are in the red.”

That’s something Fish & Game would do well to recognise.

 

THIS LATEST fiasco over meat shipments being held up on wharves in China raises the question of just how well the primary sector is being served by the Ministry for Primary Industry.

All we are hearing from MPI over this issue, and the previous problems, is it was a complete surprise to them. Yet some people in the sector say it is no surprise whatsoever and that MPI is simply behind the eight ball.

Isn’t it MPI’s job – together with MFAT – to develop strong links inside the bureaucracy of any country, especially China, and find out about any changes before they happen?

That is clearly not happening, and there is a view among business people who have traded for years with China that our people are not ‘cutting the mustard’. We wonder how many MPI people are fluent Mandarin speakers and how many of these are on the ground in China and if so how long have they been there?

Free trade agreements are only part of the story – the nice political fuzzies. The real action is in the technical area and on the face of it MPI appears to be lacking in this regard.

The meat hoo-ha closely tails the biosecurity scare in which MPI took six weeks to discover that the hoof of an animal in a PKE shipment was that of a local sheep. Six weeks is outrageous; six hours, even six days maybe, but six weeks is hopeless. Add to this the failures of MPI’s FMD exercise and the Psa issue and it’s starting to look bad. There are also complaints about the arrogant way that MPI handles some issues. The DCD scare is a classic example.

Have the constant restructurings bled the organisation of its institutional knowledge? New Zealand is at a crucial stage in its quest to develop new markets and protect our borders from catastrophic intrusions, but the organisation delegated to do this is missing-in-action. That’s not to say there aren’t good dedicated people in MPI, but recent results are worrying and do not instil much confidence in the wider primary sector.

The first task of the new chief executive of MPI must surely be to build confidence and vastly improve the communications in the organisation.

AS FEDERATED Farmers warms up for its national conference and annual meeting in Ashburton this week, it’s timely to take a look at how the lobby group operates.

Each of the seven national board members has a long list of policy responsibilities to his/her name: in one case one board member has nine topics. Such is the complexity of every one of these topics that for an individual to keep abreast of so many areas, as well as running their own business, is a tall order. Myriad meetings must be attended and the ability to effectively represent members becomes stretched, to say the least, through no fault of the board member.

The fault lies with the structure. Why do board members have to cover so many areas? Surely there is a case for greater delegation to members with expertise in particular areas? The board member may remain the spokesperson on a particular issue, but there needs to be a greater willingness to defer to specialist colleagues or sub-committees.

Feds’ policy analysts can support decision making, crunching the numbers and picking over the pertinent regulations. But unless they have been in the role for decades, few will have the in-depth specialised knowledge many of Feds’ members will have amassed in one area or another. The board member cannot be expected to have that expertise in more than one or maybe two areas either – which leaves at least three topics, and in most cases more, where knowledge is lacking.

Unless other members are seconded to pick up those areas, there’s a risk policy staff don’t just inform policy, they drive it – drive it from Wellington from an office several times removed from grassroots members. Little wonder some farmers are questioning the lobby group’s representation of members’ interests.

The fact is the federation does achieve much behind the scenes, which many grassroots members may never be aware of: they farm on, unaware of the potential regulatory roadblocks the federation has removed, or prevented being set up in the first place.

But Feds could do better if it better used the specialist knowledge that exists among its members. The current structure is a barrier to some getting involved. To put your hand up on one issue risks getting lumbered with half a dozen more. That risk needs to be removed.

THE AHUWHENUA Trophy was recently presented to Tarawera Station – a large Maori sheep and beef farm (about 30,000 stock) on the Napier Taupo highway.

The station was one of three finalists for this prestigious award. All three were sizable high-performing Maori enterprises, sustainable and with first-class governance structures and long-term plans that would be the envy of any mainstream farm.

About 850 people packed into the Napier Events Centre to see the trophy presented by Deputy Prime Minister Bill English and Maori Affairs minister Dr Pita Sharples. It was a brilliantly run event and competition – slick, entertaining and a great celebration of success. However, by and large, the success celebrated in Napier has gone unnoticed by the great unwashed. Mainstream news media ignored the field days run by the three finalists. Rural News was the only newspaper reporting on all three.

In some ways you can excuse New Zealanders for having a negative view of Maori, especially given that most news media are either too lazy or so obsessed with crime and politics that they can’t get their heads around Maori being successful. As Pita Sharples rightly points out, news media are obsessed with telling negative stories about Maori, but never cover the positives.

The Ahuwhenua Trophy has been contested for 80 years and has been won by small family enterprises, and large trusts and incorporations. The winners of this trophy are not just the best Maori farmers, they are up with and surpassing many pakeha farmers and corporate farms.

Maori are a powerhouse of the agribusiness economy. Without them our export returns would not look so flash. It’s said that about 10% of the milk and 15% of sheep and beef exports are produced on Maori farms. Through the Maori dairy company Miraka, in the central North Island, they are into further processing of dairy products.

But this in some ways is just the beginning. There are thousands of hectares of Maori land either undeveloped or underperforming and when that comes on-stream the numbers will change dramatically.

Noticing, rather than ignoring, Maori agriculture is a no-brainer.

Well cut my legs off and call me shorty; my long-held prejudice about organic enthusiasts being smug, superior types has been all but confirmed by research.

According to the abstract of a paper, published in the Journal of Social Psychological & Personality Science, people exposed to organic foods ”judged moral transgressions significantly harsher” than the control group. They also volunteered significantly less time to help a needy stranger.

Lead author, Dr Kendall J Eskine says about the study: “There’s something about being exposed to organic food that made them feel better about themselves. And that made them kind of jerks a little bit, I guess”.

Eskine’s researchers called it ”moral licensing” – whereby because you do good deeds in one area of life, you feel like you’ve paid your dues and can give up on being good in other areas.

So, according to this study, people who eat organic food are more likely to be judgmental about their fellow man. Which surely now gives us free rein to judge all of those ‘I’m better than you because I only eat organic’ types; who tend to infest the suburbs of Grey Lynn in Auckland, Wellington’s central city region,  Lyttelton in Christchurch, as well as the rank and file members of the Green Party of Aoteoroa/ New Zealand.

I’ve felt the judgemental wrath of the outraged organic lobby when some 18-months or so ago, after I penned a tongue-in-cheek column  for this very paper, suggesting that the organic lobby may not be as pure or as good for the planet as its exponents have claimed.

The genesis for the column came out from a couple of presentations given to an Australian Farm Institute conference, which suggested that organic production was not as sustainable as claimed by its proponents. In the offending piece, I wrote how the country’s agricultural productive sector had suffered the disdain of eco-warrior-types who regularly derided the environmental merits of their products and/or systems. I pointed out the majority of the country’s primary sector had too often been subjected to sanctimonious lectures from the Green Party, Greenpeace, Soil and Health NZ – or other ecological do-gooding groups – accusing them of unleashing unlimited, environmental damage on our country.

While I was been deliberately provocative, I figured most reasonable people would take it for what it was – comment. However, I’d forgotten that organic types – like all evangelicals – are rarely reasoned or reasonable. They practise a strange form of democracy that says it is only acceptable if the outcome agrees with what they believe.

So as sure as God made little green apples – Biogro certified organic, of course – came a an indignant letter to the editor

I tend to agree with Sydney Morning Herald writer Jacqueline Maley when commenting on this research wrote: “One of the more insidious trends of the modern era… is the moral sanctity people attach to their food choices. Eating is no longer something we do for taste and energy-consumption, it is a political act. The ability to select and consume biodyanamic, macro-biotic, locally-sourced and fully organic food that, with luck, is also Fair Trade, is surely the greatest middle-class indulgence of our time.”

A friend recently told me how he was accosted by one of these environmental evangelical types in the supermarket when buying some meat. Apparently this rather sanctimonious lady asked my friend if he felt bad because the beef he was buying had at some point in its life been drenched.

His terse reply was to inform the holder of this moral licence that humans worm themselves too, so does that mean that we are harming the planet as well? He then invited her, politely, to take her smug views, crocheted shopping bag and go and climb a tree.

What’s the bet she probably broke the speed limit on the way home, with my friend’s flea still ring in her ear, but will have justified her actions because she drives a Prius!

What is it with our politicians wanting New Zealand to be like other countries?
Back in the 1980’s we had David Lange aspiring New Zealand to become the Switzerland of the South Pacific. Then in the 90s Jim Bolger wanted us to all be Asians. Later, Helen Clark decreed Norway as the socialist utopia that we should emulate as a country and even John Key talked about catching up with Australia.
It’s all a bit like wanting your kids to be more like the ‘nice’ ones across the road – a fanciful idea that’s never going to actually happen.
Now Labour’s newish leader David Shearer reckons Finland is the country we should be mimicking.
In a much hyped speech, given last month, outlining his new found love of all things Finnish and his view of NZ’s future, Shearer criticised our current economic performance saying… “We’re going to go right on relying on … a small basket of primary produce exports to earn our living …”
I don’t want to start another Gerry Brownlee-type, international diplomatic incident by having a pop at Finland, but the only Finns David Shearer and the Labour Party should be promoting are the Te Awamutu-raised Tim and Neil and their musical endeavours.
While David Shearer may view New Zealand ‘going on’ relying on our primary products to earn a living as a major problem, I certainly don’t. While exporting the world’s best milk, meat and other primary produce may not seem quite as trendy or de rigeur in social democrat circles as producing mobile phones; the fact is New Zealand is good at it and the world is crying out for our primary products.
Despite all this political rhetoric about change, New Zealand remains a world leading agricultural producer and exporter. And as a country – including our politicians – should be proud of and celebrating this fact. Instead of looking at changing this, they should be investigating how we can do it even better.
They only have to look at the latest economic analysis of the value of pasture-based industries for the Pastoral Renewal Charitable Trust by Business and Economic Research Limited (BERL) to see the vital contribution and continuing growth of the primary sector to New Zealand’s economic growth.
Naysayers, like Shearer, who bemoan New Zealand’s reliance on the primary sector for its economic well-being, need to read the BERL report. It points out how the farm-gate value of dairy, sheep and beef products grew by 58% – from $10.2 billion in the 2006/2007 season – to $16.3 billion in the 2010/2011 season. It also shows that if farmers can increase the quality and management of their pasture crop, pastoral farming can make an even greater contribution to New Zealand’s GDP – and deliver higher farm incomes and more jobs.
In fact, the analysis concluded that sustained investment in pasture renewal has the potential to increase the farm gate value of pastoral products from $16 billion per annum to $19 billion and boost direct and indirect full-time employment associated with pastoral farming from 334,000 jobs to 390,000.
These are impressive growth figures in any language – including Finnish!
No one would disagree with the idea of diversifying our economy and increasing our productive base. However, as Federated Farmer’s president Bruce Wills says any technology success in New Zealand is more likely to be in specialised manufacturing and information technology linked to agriculture.
Instead of politicians trotting out diversifying New Zealand away from agriculture as the next ‘big idea’; they should look at how they can implement policies to make the sector even more productive.
Meanwhile, before David Shearer gets too excited about Finland he would do well listen to the lyrics of the Monty Python song about that country which goes:
‘You’re so sadly neglected, And often ignored, A poor second to Belgium, When going abroad’.
So let’s leave Finland to do what she is good at – bear hunting and making Nokia phones. And concentrate on what New Zealand is good at – farming!

News that MAF will change its name at the end of April and be known as the Ministry for Primary Industries reminds me of the talented, but weird singer and musician Prince.
Back in 1993, Prince had ‘an artistic difference’ with his record label and got his revenge by changing his name to an unpronounceable symbol. Due to the symbol having no stated pronunciation, he was referred to as “The Artist Formerly Known as Prince.”
Hopefully, the soon to be Ministry for Primary Industries morphs into something more than just a quirky anecdote about the “Ministry formerly known as MAF”.
It has to be a ministry that will be of benefit for the whole primary sector and not just a cunning way for the Government to meet its ever-growing target of culling swags of walk sock-wearing public bureaucrats and antagonising shrill officials at the PSA. Mind you, the latter is enough motivation for the Nat’s to slash the public service to the bone!
The new Ministry for Primary Industries is to encompass all Government work in the agricultural, horticultural, fisheries and aquaculture, forestry and food sectors, as well as biosecurity and animal welfare.
The new entity will come into effect on 30 April
Former Federated Farmers president Don Nicolson has been a long-time proponent of the move – advocating for the change as far back as 2008. In fact, in his penultimate speech as president in October last year Nicolson said:
“The final area is an impending Ministry that ought to be for Primary Industries… but we stress again the need for the word “for” to be in its title …”
Nicolson has always been adamant that it should be a Ministry ‘for’ rather than ‘of’ Primary Industries.
But, isn’t this just semantics?
In a word: no!
Nicolson’s successor Bruce Wills – who is also happy with the rebrand – says MAF becoming the Ministry for Primary Industries is incredibly positive.
“Whether it is aquaculture, dairy, forestry or wine, we have many issues that are common. We can get a lot more synergies from being joined up instead of silos defined by food, agriculture, forestry, horticulture and fisheries. We are all part of one big industry.”
Wills is right.
New Zealand’s primary industries account for more than 70 per cent of this country’s exports, earn five times the foreign exchange earnings of tourism sector, and employ around 90,000 people. So it makes absolute sense that our economy’s most important sector is joined up and represented by one governmental organisation that is working ‘for’ it.
Primary Industries Minister David Carter – the man formerly known as the Minister of Agriculture – says the name change is a logical move. [Another quirky anecdote from the late 1990s is the agriculture portfolio was briefly titled “Minister of Food, Fibre and Biosecurity”, but quickly returned to “Minister of Agriculture” a short time later.]
“It recognises the broad role the Ministry has of growing and protecting the primary sector, the powerhouse of New Zealand’s economy. Importantly it provides the different parts of the organisation with a single unifying identity to champion the sector.”
It is hard to disagree with Carter’s sentiment.
However, is it not time for the rest of the primary sector get its act together as well? I’ve advocated this before and at risk of becoming boring and repetitive (not much of a stretch, I realise).
However, New Zealand’s agribusiness sector is still unable to speak as one, unified voice on industry matters as it is currently served by a wide and diverse group of organisations and lobby groups. Despite the sector’s size, resources and undoubted importance to the country’s economic well-being, it almost impossible for a clear, united and unambiguous agribusiness sector view to be expressed – making it much easier for critics and opponents to pick on different parts of the sector.
Government has led with its move to the Ministry for Primary Industries, now the rest of the primary sector should follow suit and establish a unified, sector advocate organisation.

The battle for the ownership of the Crafar Farms and the Government’s sign-off of the Overseas Investment Office’s approval of the sale of the farms to Chinese bidders has shown the nasty and ugly side of this country.

During the nine-month battle for the hearts and minds of the New Zealand public in the long-running saga to purchase the 16 central North Island dairy farms, once farmed by the Crafar Family, has taken many interesting turns.

In the red corner is the Chinese company Shanghai Pengxin’s who’s successful  bid to buy the Crafar dairy farms will – according to critics – leave New Zealanders as nothing more than tenants in our own land.

Meanwhile, in the black corner we have a wide cast of characters stirring up anti-foreigner sentiment. Most recently been this has been led by a rival group of local buyers – the Crafar Farms Independent Purchaser Group— fronted by the merchant banker and former state asset seller Sir Michael Fay.

Add into the mix opposition politicians preying over the corpse of the Crafar deal like proverbial vultures – hoping to swoop on the side of popular public opinion; who have doing their utmost to peel off the thin racist veneer of New Zealanders’ none too deep anti-Chinese feelings, while disingenuously claiming they are not.

Already we’ve seen the unbelievable transformation of Michael Fay, from the biggest flogger of NZ assets and a Swiss-based tax exile to becoming the cheerleader of keeping it Kiwi.  Ironically, Fay has been aided and abetted is his cause by arch nemesis and fellow 1980s dinosaur Winston Peters.

Even the masters of the dark arts –public relations consultants – have wadded into the debate in an effort to further influence the court of public opinion.  Fay’s PR hack even conned well-known leftie John Campbell into giving his client prime TV time to promote ‘Kiwi’ Mike’s unsuccessful bid.

Another delicious irony is that Landcorp the country’s biggest corporate farmer and a state-owned entity at that, has confirmed it will manage the farms on behalf of the new Chinese owners.

The simple fact is the best price won day. The farms, which total nearly 8000 hectares, saw Pengxin offer $210 million – the Fay group’s bid was around $40m less at $171.5 million.

Fay’s group offered way less for the farms. It might have pushed the patriotic theme – to the brink of xenophobia – but only in an effort to make its low-ball offer more of a winner with the public.

However, instead of promulgating ugly racism or whingeing about suing the Government why didn’t this rival group just offer a better price than the Chinese bidders? Surely Fay has plenty left over from his fees from hocking off NZ Rail and the BNZ back in the 90s?

Are opponents of this deal now saying that farmers cannot sell their own land to the highest bidder – if it’s an overseas buyer? If so – then surely that has interesting connotations for people in Auckland, Wellington and Queenstown selling their houses to wealthy international buyers!

Funnily enough, the actual sellers of the Crafar Farms – Westpac and Rabobank – are not exactly New Zealand companies and there has not been too much noise about their ownership of these farms. (Mind you, there are not too many Kiwi-owned banks these days – something Sir Michael knows a thing or two about!)

But Kiwis are not on their own with anti-foreign farm ownership feelings. Our Australian cousins have recently been warned by their federal government that a “xenophobic campaign” will rob their farmers of opportunities presented by the increasing demand from Asian countries for secure food supplies.

This same kind of xenophobia will – if we are not careful – also rob New Zealand farmers of the right to sell their land to the highest bidder.

 

The fight over the Crafar Farms has already had more twists and turns than a cheap novel.

However, the battle for the hearts and minds of the New Zealand public in the long-running saga about who will get to purchase the 16 central North Island dairy farms, once farmed by the Crafar Family, has taken another interesting spin.

In the red corner we have Chinese company Shanghai Pengxin’s who’s successful  bid to buy the Crafar dairy farms will – according to critics – see New Zealanders left as little more than peasant tenants in their own country.  Meanwhile, in the blue corner we have a rival group of local buyers, including Maori – led by businessman and infamous state asset stripper and seller Sir Michael Fay.

Fay’s group is offering less for the farms, but pushing the patriotic theme – almost to the brink of xenophobia – and is now threatening to sue the Overseas Investment Office should the Chinese bid gain approval.

The farms, which total nearly 8000 hectares, have been in receivership for more than two years.

Pengxin’s offer is understood to between $210 million and $220 million, while Fay’s group has offered $171.5m.

This saga has already seen the almost unbelievable transformation of Michael Fay from the biggest flogger of NZ assets to now become the cheerleader for keeping it Kiwi.

And now the masters of the dark arts – known as public relations – have entered the debate in an effort to influence the court of public opinion.

But making this even more interesting is that the rival spin doctors were once former colleagues and in an Auckland-based PR firm. Former founding partners of Star PR; Alan McDonald and Cedric Allen have now ended up on opposite sides of the fence in the Crafar saga—with McDonald championing Fay’s cause; while Allen is running the Chinese buyers’ PR campaign.

Add into the mix politicians – doing their best to scratch New Zealanders’ none too deep racist itch about the yellow peril, while claiming they are not – preying over the corpse of the Crafar deal like vultures.

Another delicious irony is that Landcorp, an SOE the country’s biggest corporate farmer, has confirmed it is in talks with Pengxin to run the farms if the Chinese offer is successful.

Whatever happens in the next week or so in regards to the OIO decision, there is little doubt we will be hearing a whole lot more about the Crafar Farms in the next couple of months.

Keep tuned, as this saga is going to keep spinning for some time yet!

Fonterra’s recent announcement that it intends to reduce local milk prices may have been welcomed by various consumer groups and many others – including self-serving politicians.

While the intention may be good; the move is likely to cause long-term problems for the dairy co-operative—as its dairy farmer owners’ end up not so much crying over spilt milk – but split milk prices!

The move looks more like a cheap (which may actually turn out to be costly for farmers) public relations stunt to appease these critics – rather than the reality of the market. The dairy co-operative now risks feeding the myth – propagated by these same critics – that farm products ought to be cheaper in their country of origin.

That is a fallacy that neither the dairy industry, the wider primary sector nor the New Zealand economy as a whole can afford to have.

Fonterra is the leading international supplier of premium dairy products around the world. The fact is that fresh, farmed milk now costs more than manufactured drinks. Meanwhile, demand for dairy products is rising with prosperity in places such as China and other international markets.

The New Zealand market is just one of many that Fonterra supplies its products to. It is hypocritical and an unfair expectation of New Zealand’s dairy farmers that they should have to subsidise local buyers of dairy products.

New Zealand consumers do not expect cheaper or subsidised products from the plethora of international banks, insurance and oil companies that are based in this country. Nor should they expect the same from one of the few, truly New Zealand-based successful international trading companies.

All local consumers should expect is a truly competitive industry at all stages from the farm to the final consumer.  So far, all the inquiries, investigations and independent reports have found this to be the case.