abandoning fec Should the focus be on worm treatment by animal performance? page 30
puma set to purr Simplicity, productivity, economy and comfort. page 33
Rural NEWS
training providers merge Primary sector workforce set to reap benefits.
page 18
to all farmers, for all farmers
august 1, 2012: Issue 520
www.ruralnews.co.nz
Agri’s $60b call to arms p e t e r bu r k e
AN AGRI-FOOD board drawing together sector leaders could pave the way for boosting New Zealand’s food exports to $60 billion by 2025. This is a key recommendation in a report by the Riddet Institute – a national ‘centre of research excellence’ which specialises in coordinating research in many fields including developing innovative foods and providing leadership in this area. The report, ‘A Call to Arms’, was prepared by a “thought leadership group” headed by Dr Kevin Marshall
who has extensive experience in the dairy industry and the wider food sector. Launched last week at a special function in Wellington, the report is seen as a “high level agri-food strategy” with particular focus on food research and the development and education support needed to achieve the $60 billion dollar target. Marshall admitted to Rural News there has been an ‘avalanche’ of other reports on this subject, but this one is different, he says. “The big difference is that we’ve absolutely quantified up front what
the target is ($60 billion) and secondly we’ve laid it at the feet of the leaders of the commercial companies to do something about it and not to wait for government to do it.” The report identifies weaknesses to be overcome to achieve the goal. These include lack of focus on the ability to grow wealth, government structures ‘siloed’ and not conducive to coordination, and lack of leadership in the agrifood sector. “The captains of industry haven’t stepped up to the plate. They haven’t taken a leadership role and too much of what’s happened in the past has been
left for government to do. In this report a lot of the recommendations are not things the government can deal with.” Marshall says the proposed agrifood board would be filled by company executives – not people from the likes of HortNZ, DairyNZ and BLNZ. It should be a relatively small ‘coalition of the willing’ with a strong commercial focus by people “in the market”. “I’d expect the likes of large companies such as Fonterra and Silver Fern Farms to be there. Also some of the smaller, innovative ones such as Synlait and FirstLight Foods.” The $60 billion challenge presents many obstacles including the problems of science and engineering graduates not staying in New Zealand and that of technology transfer. Marshall insists that unless industry runs with the recommendations in the report the future will not be rosey. “If we carry on with business as usual we won’t achieve this target.”
biosecurity gets bite
Primary Industries Minister David Carter pictured with MPI dog handler Courtney Moore and a new detector dog at Auckland airport late last month. The new biosecurity hound on duty was not the only one bearing his teeth on this controversial subject, with Carter giving attendees at Horticulture NZ’s annual conference in Auckland last week a dressing down over their continuing criticism of New Zealand’s biosecurity standards. More articles on the new detector dogs and reaction to the Minister’s Hort NZ speech are in this issue of Rural News.
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NPSFM clear as mud a n d r ew swa l low
THE RUBBER of the Government’s National Policy Statement on Freshwater Management (NPSFM) is starting to hit roads in the regions and it will force wholesale changes on some farms. Otago is in the vanguard, with a suite of “discharge limits” and rules already set in its Plan Change 6A which must be met by November 2017, but every region must have a process set by 2014 and implemented at the latest by 2030. Federated Farmers national board member responsible for water matters is Ian Mackenzie, an irrigated cropping farmer from Mid Canterbury. He believes regional implementation of the policy statement is appropriate, but that’s not to say every region is implementing the policy in an appropriate way. In some regions, particularly in the north, overly bureaucratic plans are emerging that threaten to impose systems on farmers which won’t necessarily deliver the desired outcomes, he warns. “Farmers are being told how to farm to meet rule requirements and it may not make a blind bit of difference to water quality.” Otago’s approach seems pragmatic: leave all farming as a permitted activity (i.e. not requiring a consent) but set farm water discharge quality targets and measure to page 7