Opinion

IT WAS of little surprise that the recent Federated Farmers and Rabobank survey had 36% of farmers saying it was difficult to recruit skilled and motivated staff.

That isn’t just an issue for the primary sector, it is an issue for the country as we need to farm ourselves out of the crisis that was covid.

There have been several barriers to rural employment in the past, with the first being our image.

I believe that is changing because of the Prime Minister’s statements that we’ll need to farm our way out of the current crisis. That has been well promoted by Feds, who I think have done an excellent job of positioning our sector as mainstream and politically independent. The levy organisations, Beef + Lamb NZ and DairyNZ have supported that.

I also believe the organisations concerned have done a great job highlighting the conservation commitment of the sector and the results we’ve achieved.

In addition with the lack of opportunity in the cities and the huge price of properties, a large number of people have moved to the provinces.

This has been assisted by the fact that people can now work some, or all of the time, from home. That shows there is more to life than a late lunch on Lambton Quay or a dismal desk job in a big city.

What I hadn’t realised was the massive investment by the Government and the sector in highlighting both the opportunities and lifestyle of primary production and the jobs available, along with a comprehensive training package.

Last year the Government allocated $19 million to try and get 10,000 people into the food and fibre sectors. As a result of that initiative, so far 1289 have found work, which is a promising start.

The initiatives are many and varied. Locally, Taratahi has risen from the ashes and is offering free taster courses in agriculture. Two-thirds of the people on those courses have either entered employment or gone on to further study.

Those attending have varied from city unemployed, contractors to airline pilots. The courses are described as practical aimed at getting people work-ready, and “aim to show people what farming is really like”.

Taratahi is currently working with MPI to both broaden the appeal of working in primary industry and removing as many barriers as possible.

I also spoke to the Primary Industry Training Organisation’s executive general manager – customer development Andrea Leslie.

Coming from a rural background she is really bullish about our future, pointing out that enrolments have increased 200%. They’ve doubled since this time last year. She believes that the products the ITO is offering are meeting the industry’s needs and that there has been a marked improvement in both structures and programs at the organisation.

Leslie also says ITO staff are authentically connected to agriculture at all levels.

I also hadn’t realised there was an organisation called PICA. It’s the Primary Industry Capability Alliance and is supported by the Government, industry good groups and the ITO. The chief executive Michelle Glogau describes some impressive initiatives to get young people into agriculture. These include having role models telling students what life is really like in farming. They’re also targeting teachers.

She explains that on-farm you can work, earn and learn at the same time.

She also believes that people were starting to move into agriculture pre-covid.

Go onto the PICA website – it is impressive.

In addition, Lincoln University postgraduate enrolments are up 342%, which is just as impressive. Undergraduate and diploma enrolments are up 28%. Massey enrolments are up “between 2030%”.

Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor is pleased with progress.

“We were the first sector to launch a skills strategy and the second to launch a sector of vocational excellence,” he told Farmers Weekly.

“All the components for attracting young people to agriculture are in place and it’s up to everyone in the sector to maintain the momentum.”

I started writing this article about the tragedy that 36% of farmers are struggling to find good, motivated staff. Having researched the issue, I’m convinced that is a temporary problem. The minister and the sector are to be congratulated for that.

After all, why wouldn’t you move into agriculture? I regularly read about city folk who have two, three or, in one case I’m aware of, four jobs just to keep afloat.

I’m obviously biased, but who would spend 60% of their income on rent, travel long distances to work and pay a fortune for meat and vegetables at the supermarket, when you can live on the job with minimal rent, grow your own vegetables and be part of a sector vital to NZ’s future?

In addition, country schools offer a unique type of education and individuals and families are a lot safer in rural NZ

I rest my case.

Alan Emerson is a semi-retired Wairarapa farmer and businessman: dath.emerson@gmail.com

I WAS rung a few days ago by Radio NZ asking me if I was in south-eastern Hawke’s Bay. I had to think for a bit as it’s not a term I’d thought of, heard or used.

I said I suppose I was, but it was more Central Hawke’s Bay. Did they mean coastal Tararua? They thought that’s what they might be talking about.

So, I suggested they were probably thinking a little further south and yes, east of me then.

Then they asked how the drought was going.

I queried if we were now in a drought and how did they know and they said that we were because NIWA’s latest update had indicated that.

I told them that I would consider that for my district, we were having a good old-fashioned hot and dry Hawke’s Bay summer and that they should ring me in a month because if it hadn’t rained by then, I would agree that we might be looking at a consecutive drought.

I said I couldn’t chat any further as the drafter had just waded his way through a race of lambs and now it was my turn to draft those that were off to the works a little later in the day. Leaving those lucky fellows who got to hang around for another month or two picking away at what quality feed I could offer, sipping from nice cleaned out troughs and sitting in the shade of the trees I’ve planted for their comfort.

But I suggested they talk to Max the drafter to see what he thought, and I overheard him telling them pretty much the same as I had.

After he hung up, I suggested given what we had just learned, maybe we should go deeper into the lambs just in case. But I kept my nerve and said just keep taking out the tops.

The February draft is never a big one as I’ve gone deep at weaning to get over half away and then two months later, the January draft also gets a good number off as the clover levels are usually decent, they are no longer competing with their mothers for the quality and it hasn’t got too hot.

So, we sent just 120 that day and later they killed out at a reasonable 19kg, which is fine for non-crop lambs at this time of the year. I’ve learned not to be greedy and just keep reducing the numbers.

When my previous drafter Gordon was teaching me how to farm properly, he said that a lamb’s biggest rival was another lamb. Not just the competition against each other, but fewer lambs means a lower carry over worm burden for next year’s lambs to deal with.

That evening, I totted up my rainfall figures. Just 20mm for this month, but areas further north of here got good rains in the same event two weeks ago. There was 77mm in January, courtesy of a thunderstorm in the first few days of the new year and a meagre 17mm for December.

But we had a wet November, which grew a lot of feed at a time I destock, and there is still a bit of that snap-dried feed around waiting to be cleaned up by older stock.

It has been hot though, with temperatures around 30degC, but there has been little wind.

I then went to the NIWA site and sure enough their drought index map had us looking good and dry.

Folk will be twitchy after last years’ experience and for good reason.

Prudent destocking remains a good option, just in case.

Space at the meat plants for both sheep and cattle has remained tight.

The covid-19 disruption with shipping and markets is one of the reasons and staffing continues to be problematic. The students have returned to their studies and I hear the apple orchards and vineyards are competing on pay rates for a change, in their own desperation to get their harvest in.

So, we hang in the balance. Good rains within the next few weeks will set us up for a good autumn and if the dry continues, then things will get tricky quite quickly.

Time will tell.

CHINA is New Zealand’s biggest kiwifruit market. Growth of this market has been spectacular with the Zespri-owned SunGold variety much-loved by Chinese consumers. The problem is that the Chinese are also growing at least 4000ha of SunGold without the permission of Zespri.

That compares to about 7000ha of SunGold grown in NZ.

The question now facing Zespri and the NZ kiwifruit industry is what to do about it. There are no easy solutions.

This issue is something I discussed with local folk in the kiwifruit-growing regions of China way back in the years between 2012 and 2015. It did not need an Einstein to work out that the SunGold budwood was already there. However, Zespri at that time had its mind on other issues. Also, they probably had no idea how popular the SunGold variety would become.

My impression at that time was that Zespri was a little too cocksure of themselves on most matters relating to China. They had a presence on the eastern seaboard of China, where they were in some trouble over customs duty avoidance, but the kiwifruit growing regions were thousands of kilometres away in the west. They really did not know what was happening.

Given that Zespri has the plant variety rights, which run through to 2036, they can now, in theory, demand that all of the SunGold orchards are cut down. However, the practicalities are daunting. China is a very big place and finding the orchards and identifying which ones are SunGold is scarcely practical.

One of my mates who knows a lot about both China and kiwifruit reckons there could be as many as 20,000 small-scale kiwifruit growers who have the SunGold variety. But none of us really knows how widespread the plantings have been. There will be a few big corporates, but much of the plantings will be on land owned by old-style small-scale farmers.

To put it bluntly, Zespri has been very slow to address the issue and there is a powerful argument that the horse – or in this case the SunGold budwood – has long since bolted. These are relatively poor people, even by Chinese standards. There is potential for Zespri to do considerable damage to its reputation in China.

Also, it is not a crime for these Chinese growers to have a SunGold crop. If Zespri wants to enforce its legal rights it will have to do this through the civil courts, not through the criminal system.

Most of the growers probably have no idea that Zespri owns the plant variety rights. What they do know is that kiwifruit are native to China and not NZ. They have had their own varieties of green, gold and red kiwifruit for thousands of years, but they are very keen on this SunGold variety.

If NZ does try to enforce its perceived rights, there could be interesting questions in China as to where did NZ get its genetic material from? The answer of course is that it came from China, with NZ scientists then using this as the foundation for their breeding programmes.

At some stage, someone will also ask as to whether NZ paid the Chinese for rights to the original genetic material. The answer to that will be: “Actually, No, we just took it.”

The Chinese government has acknowledged the current situation and there is at least implicit recognition that Zespri does have intellectual property rights. But it will be Zespri’s job to do the hard work. That is the way it would also be in NZ, where the Government stands back from civil intellectual property litigation cases.

Zespri has therefore come to the belated conclusion that it might be better to aim for a commercial resolution rather than a legal one. They now have a preliminary agreement to work with a largescale corporate kiwifruit entity in Sichuan, which just happens to be owned by the Sichuan Provincial Government. The stated aim is to create a win-win for all parties. The Chinese Government says it thinks that is a good idea.

Unfortunately, it is not quite as simple as that. Although Zespri is the monopoly marketer of NZ kiwifruit beyond NZ and Australian shores, it has to get sign-off for an agreement like this from Kiwifruit NZ (KNZ), which is a regulatory body. Right now, KNZ is saying they are not convinced this is in the interests of NZ kiwifruit growers.

At this stage, we do not know the details of the proposed agreement with the Chinese group. Once KNZ indicated its lack of enthusiasm, Zespri withdrew the draft agreement document they had reached with the Chinese company. They are now working on a revised agreement.

In all likelihood, a revised agreement will need to be approved by kiwifruit growers in a vote. The lobbying in relation to that vote is going to be very interesting.

KNZ has said that they are nervous that NZ expertise in the growing of kiwifruit will be given to the Chinese. This thinking is likely to be flawed. The Chinese already know how to grow kiwifruit. Their challenge is to spread the existing expertise throughout their industry.

The other big question, which KNZ may or may not have asked, is how effective will the agreement be? That is a big question.

The agreement seems to be based on the assumption that most of the SunGold is in Sichuan Province where the Sichuan Government has authority. However, not all of the SunGold is in Sichuan. Some will be in Shaanxi, some will be in Gansu and some will be further afield. Almost certainly, none of us, including Zespri, are in a position to quantify the specifics of what we mean by “some”.

Even without an agreement, Zespri will be able to restrain large-scale marketing of Chinese SunGold to Europe, North America or Japan. Any importer from those regions would be at risk of having their produce taken away by Zespri.

Accordingly, the likelihood is that most of the Chinese production will stay within China. Recently, I caught up with an old China-hand who first went to China some fifteen years ago to organise the sale of Chinese horticulture products to Europe. Instead, he found the internal prospects were so good that he has spent the past fifteen years growing and marketing fruit (but not kiwifruit) within China itself.

The growing seasons for NZ and Chinese kiwifruit are complementary. That is why, right now, those of us addicted to kiwifruit are having to eat Northern Hemisphere product from Italy. The shelf life with current technology is only around seven to eight months.

Accordingly, it is not hard to envisage how working with a local Chinese group could be of benefit in marketing NZ kiwifruit across the vast lands of China. Across those lands there are more than 150 cities, each one having more than one million people, most of which Zespri will not get to by itself.

Given the above realities, it makes sense for Zespri and the NZ industry to try and find a win-win solution from which everyone benefits. Eastern cultures tend to favour such approaches, but it is not deeply wired into our business DNA here. So, the NZ grower discussions are going to be very interesting. Whatever the outcome, not everyone is going to be happy.