Presidents address to National Conference

“Food for Thought” our conference headline is designed to help connect New Zealand with what we do. Those who seek to frame and marginalise us often use terminology like the “agricultural industry” as if we are a factory with belching chimneys or they use “increasingly corporate” as if we are dominated by boards and shareholders with dispassionate CEO’s on performance KPI’s.

The reality is we are growers of food hugely dominated by farming families owning and operating a business with passion and huge commitment to the communities we live in. I will tell you about such a family later in my speech. For most farmers the biggest attraction of the occupation is the values the people in the rural communities hold so dearly. Passion, fortitude, perseverance, self reliance and a deep love of the outdoors are the hallmarks of people who live in our rural communities, not all are farmers, but those who aren’t most often live and work amongst us because they share our value set.

The elements within New Zealand who would brand us as purely profit driven people, unconcerned about our environmental footprint and our own communities’ are disingenuous, even untruthful. This phenomenon is relatively recent and has coincided with the advent of MMP government. Pressure groups and their political allies seek to carve out and protect their political niche, they do this by feeding their followers their own version of the truth. Sadly much of the contempt we face as food producers is falsely based and it is our own responsibility as food producers, to re-connect, re-educate and rejuvenate a positive relationship with our mates in the cities.

Folks in the city need us more than they know which is one reason why the headline title for this conference is “Food for Thought” and why the federation has for sometime now referred to ourselves not as farmers but as food producers. Three times a day as they sit down for a meal every New Zealander should say “thank God for the producers” otherwise their mealtime could be an empty experience. And when they sit down after their meal and watch their large flat screen, once again they could say “thank God for the exporters” because without them this proud little nation would be the largest third world country in the South Pacific and the standard of living would reflect that.

Every Kiwi knows that driving a car has big negative impact on the environment and as a result they now feel guilty about that and drive as little as possible. They then bus, train, skateboard and walk in an effort to reduce their carbon footprint. They don’t however harass or abuse the guy that owns the oil well and pumps the stuff out of the ground. But with food for some reason the connection with the consumer and any personal responsibility for the environmental effects of food production seems absent.

New Zealanders eat a hell of a lot of food and don’t give a second thought to the fact that they themselves drive the food producers and any environmental effect from the food production.

In New Zealand we are and have for sometime been consumer led, not production driven. When government got out of our lives in the mid-eighties, we had to produce the food the consumer wanted, to rebuild our sector. The hypocrisy of those consumers living in the most unsustainable environment in the world, a city, to eat the food we produce, but demand only we as food producers accept responsibility for the environmental effects of production just amazes me. If they used the same value set as they used with car driving they would be cutting back on food to save the planet, even perhaps encouraging “more foodless” days for the really righteous environmentalists. But no, they eat too much, exercise to little and abuse and blame the producer. No wonder we feel under siege.

The most common criticism of food production is its impact on water.

· Where is the acknowledgement that New Zealand lakes and water ways contain the third highest quality water in the world – albeit affected by the existence of 4.5 million people wanting a standard of living acceptable by 2008 standards?
· Where is the acknowledgement that New Zealand food has the smallest effect on climate change kilo for kilo of food produced anywhere in the world?
· Where is the acknowledgement that New Zealand food producers do this without subsidy unlike most farms in the world?

European farmers get a separate subsidy under a multifunctionality payment for keeping the countryside in good shape for weekend visitors. In New Zealand we do much better and we do it for the love of the land and off the bottom line of our personal balance sheets, but the balance sheets are stressed and New Zealand farmers are moving offshore.

I will tell you a story about a New Zealand farming family, hardworking and dedicated to their farm and their community. They are right now under siege from the Resource Management Act.

The Dymock’s, Robbie and Mary, have built a life and live their dream at Roma Farm next the beautiful Lake Taupo. In the beginning Robbie, one of five siblings realised the family farm didn’t need him.

Robbie worked on farms in Gisborne, Wairoa and Hawkes Bay, and a stint on the Maui gas pipeline, saving everything he could. He completed a land settlement course at Flock House near Bulls. He then made the best decision of his life. Robbie married Mary in Feilding in 1981.

The second best day of Robbie’s life occurred the very next year in 1982 when against all odds he drew a ballot farm. Robbie and Mary may not have ever had their own farm if it hadn’t been for the government developing the area around Taupo and then balloting the farms to people who had little other chance of farm ownership.

The description of the block was frank, original cover, light bush and fern with some podocarps, subject to dry summers, large area of steep hill, some gullies and swamp.
These were some of the last farms the government decided to develop; they were last because they were considered to be in the least desirable areas.

The bush had been cleared by the government but making Roma a farm was up to Robbie and Mary. The transformation is testament to hard work and dedication, traits of many New Zealand farming couples as I have already mentioned.

Robbie and Mary have invested their life work and their life’s savings into Roma Farm. Ten paddocks have become 63. The special conservation areas have been fenced off and pines have been tended, cropped then replanted.

Twenty-six years of toil has changed the face of the farm and changed Robbie and Mary. But they knew, or thought that they knew, they had their life’s work and savings in Roma farm to the rateable value of $3.1 million dollars. But under the RMA the rules applying to their farming activity have been changed.

Robbie and Mary have been told Roma is now worth $2 million less than its rateable value. These new rules look as thought they will restrict their ability to run a profitable and flexible farming business.

And why has this happened, it’s because of the lack of balance in the Resource Management Act. The RMA allows the taking of private property without compensation. Robbie and Mary love Lake Taupo as does every New Zealander, but should the cost of protection fall on individual families like Robbie and Mary Dymock or should it be shared by the whole community, all of us?

The RMA can be cruel, but most New Zealanders don’t know how cruel, Federated Farmers knows that New Zealanders would not support this unfairness if they understood it.

This is why I asked Robbie and Mary to share their story and that is why this federation is backing Robbie and Mary and the other farming families affected by the RMA.

We all want to achieve environmental sustainability but everybody needs to pay the price, not just an unlucky few farming families. We all need to pay! The RMA must be changed to have more balance. Thank you to Robbie and Mary. I know this is very painful to have your story told, but you are not alone we are determined to stand by you.

The RMA is effectively squeezing the profitability out of food production, without any real knowledge of the effects on farming or the New Zealand economy. Early drafts of the RMA included compensatory clauses, similar to the ‘Public Works Act’ where if the community needs a corner of your farm to take a bend out of state highway one or to build a new airport, it happens, and the farmer is compensated fairly. In the end the RMA was passed without a compensatory clause because it was not envisaged that the Act would be implemented as aggressively as it has been. The RMA does have within it a requirement to take environmental, social and economic effects into account.

The sad fact of the matter is that most council’s choose to ignore the economic effects or use their own staff to undertake such work at a very low level. The net result is almost always that real economic effects are overlooked.

Calls from the Federation and others in the business community for a strengthening of the requirements in the RMA for economic consideration including fairness and equality have been ignored. This is creating significant risk for the economic wellbeing of our country, and the standard of living of every Kiwi.

At one level regional council’s say that no matter how hard they squeeze New Zealand food producers even to the point of bankruptcy, they can’t take the farm with them like the Dymocks. However this ignores that producers can choose not to reinvest into production in New Zealand and instead they can invest offshore in countries that are more farming friendly.

The effect of this has enormous potential consequences for the New Zealand economy. An example is the shift of dairying from north to south. If you overlook the intensification effect on the environment the positive economic effect on the Canterbury and Southland regions has been spectacular with the growth of dairy.

That shift has seen the economic benefits stay in New Zealand and flow to all New Zealanders, the trend is quite different today with smart farmers now investing in North and South America, Australia and Africa. Not only are they taking New Zealand’s future investments they are also taking New Zealand’s intellectual property with them. Remember there are few countries in the world where the New Zealand farming system won’t deliver higher returns than the indigenous systems.

New Zealand is loosing capital, intellectual and financial. I predict that this trend will continue and increase unless the RMA is changed. I can almost hear the environmentalists cheering saying we don’t want the dairy farmers in New Zealand, but Moodeys noted last week that the dairy boom is the one positive element in the New Zealand economy preventing a drift into recession. Greenies might not care about their standard of living but I think most families do.

Food producers are on the brink of feeling unloved and unwanted in this country and experiences of the cruelty of the RMA, demonstrated by cases like Robbie and Mary Dymock, will soon convince many other farmers that the future for their food production business is not in New Zealand.

Our plea to our fellow New Zealanders is do not tolerate this unfairness and the risk it creates to the welfare of our economy and future generations. Please encourage government to review and change the RMA before it’s too late.

One other approach is to allow New Zealanders to share the cost of Kyoto and a better environment by placing a “Green Tax” on all food at retail level. The proceeds of this tax could be used to help New Zealand food producers to buy carbon credits and compensate for property loss under the RMA. The paying and acceptance of such a tax would have the double benefit of keeping New Zealand food producers viable and still producing in New Zealand, and allowing all New Zealanders to share the responsibility. After all, European farmers are all paid a subsidy by government to carry out environmental work and a tax on food in New Zealand would allow all New Zealanders to help enhance what we all love. That is the New Zealand countryside, protected by producers in partnership with all New Zealanders.

The danger signs for food production and the New Zealand economy are there. Regional councils refuse to acknowledge the danger signs or take them into account. Producers are suffering and beginning to leave New Zealand. Only the government encouraged by our fellow New Zealanders in the cities can prevent the dire and unnecessary consequences.