With the election approaching (although further out than it was a week ago) DairyNZ have been canvasing dairy farmers to gauge what issues they see the politicians are able to make positive contributions to.
The have put together a 10 point ‘request list’ outlining what farmers would like to see happen. The general trend appears reasonable with transparency and partnerships being an underlying theme. A summary of the themes are below:
Refocus investment in science
1. Invest in R&D for our primary sector to unlock more value and volume.
2. Set a clear strategy for science funding that is appropriately resourced to support farmers to reduce their environmental footprint while increasing profit.
Work with us to future-proof our sector
3. Work with the sector to meet workforce needs through training and recruitment of Kiwis, as well as skilled migrant workers.
4. Invest in rural broadband and improved mobile coverage to better connect our rural communities with New Zealand and the world.
5. Develop a national water storage strategy and invest in water storage to increase water supply in times of drought, enable land-use flexibility and unlock economic potential.
6. Develop and enforce a world-leading biosecurity system that is properly resourced, learns from our M. bovis experience and ensures everyone plays their part.
7. Reform the RMA to reduce compliance costs for farmers, increase efficiency and drive better environmental outcomes.
Get our environmental settings and support right
8. Partner with farmers and support them to play their part to meet new environmental standards.
9. Ensure targets for water quality improvements are fair and equitable, clear, scientifically robust and have pragmatic timeframes for implementation.
10. Review the methane targets in the Zero Carbon Act to ensure they are firmly grounded in science and align our international and domestic targets by applying a split gas approach to our Paris commitment and carbon budgets.
The refocus on science investment was not a plea for more money necessarily but to target existing pools more strategically and work with farmers. There is a recognition (from DNZ) that the government is applying more funds to new initiatives, but the concern is that this should not come at the expense of the existing and profitable sectors.
Future proofing the sector took a broader approach picking up the usual areas (in recent times) for improvement in providing training and recruitment help for the prospective workforce and assist with the provision of water storage. One area that did surprise me, but probably shouldn’t have, was for the up grading of broadband and mobile phone coverage. Watching some of the advertisements for dairying often is seen young farmers applying the use of some of the apps that are available. This makes it look as though poor coverage is the exception. I’m always envious as we struggle to get a signal for cell phones and the internet is so pathetic that we had to recently request a ‘hard copy’ of the Farm Survey from StatsNZ as we couldn’t return send the filled in document as it would time out before being able to be sent. So, it was a surprise to see that 50% of dairy farmers surveyed didn’t have adequate broadband and 51% saying mobile phone coverage was insufficient.
Given that dairy farming tends to take place ‘in the suburbs’ the coverage for sheep and beef farmers will most likely be substantially worse. The government committed $15m back in April but there appears to be little progress. We have actually gone backwards, especially noticeable when the schools were/are online.
The other call under the “refocus on science” is a call to bolster and improve biosecurity. The M.Bovis outbreak should have taught everybody alike that prevention is far better and cheaper than cure. Unfortunately, the COVID-19 outbreak has also taught us just how difficult to seal a border is. However, given the miniscule budgeted amounts for border control pre-M.Bovis outbreaks of biosecurity threats were not only likely they were becoming common place. In the new world we now operate not only will there be a greater appreciation of the threats but there almost surely will be more funding.
Environmental settings also got a mention with once again farmers calling for any decisions to be grounded in science and for the regulatory bodies to work with rather than against farmers.
Overall farmer requests appear modest and already the government seems to be moving largely in the right direction. The breakdown seems to be that the partnership approach that farmers are calling for has been overlooked. The 10-page document is an easy read and apart from the 10 points highlighted provides additional data about what farmers view as concerns and have experienced.
COVID updates
Switching to some COVID-19 observations, the ‘story’ around where New Zealand could possibly expect to stand in the queue for any potential vaccines has been blowing hot and cold over the last few days. One thing the latest outbreaks have shown is that without a viable vaccine we will remain, as with the rest of the world, extremely vulnerable.
An academic recently has said New Zealand should remain well down the queue with more vulnerable countries getting it first. While this is an idealistic notion the USA and UK among others have already confirmed orders from labs within their borders for first or at least early access to vaccines. New Zealand with (only) 5 million potential candidates will not achieve much leverage to get favourable treatment.
However, it was mentioned earlier in the week that Australia would include New Zealand and the South Pacific Islands in their order providing much needed clout to the order. However, when an online search was conducted to try and find the full release of this kind gesture from Australia, I came up empty handed. Including New Zealand and the Pacific in any deal does make sense as cross border travel proliferates between countries and for improved economies for all a joint approach should be taken. It then became better, at least for Australia, where it appears that the Australian PM has managed to secure a deal with the Oxford vaccine developers to enable Australia to manufacture vaccine under license at the earliest opportunity. Hopefully New Zealand and the Pacific can then ‘piggy back’ on this deal. Presumably this will be after Australia has met its demand.
The WHO have recommended that the ‘frontline’ 20% of all countries should receive the vaccine first and vaccine producing countries shouldn’t become nationalistic. While this is another well-meant notion, as shown with USA, UK and most likely Russia and China there is no way these countries are going to put themselves at a disadvantage when lining up for the vaccine.
The other aspect that can’t be ignored is that we are not likely to see any vaccination of scale occur until sometime next year. The race for who can produce the first effective vaccine has heated up and it appears those who are prepared to take the most risks by applying the vaccine to desperate human candidates before comprehensive safe testing has been completed will gain a significant advantage, for what advantage, apart from bragging rights, I’m not sure.
The good news is that most believe that a vaccine is in the wings and given enough time we will be able to put this episode behind us.
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