By Bruce Wills
The national sport of pulling ourselves down has gone global.
This week, I took a call from a reporter at a major American newspaper writing a story on the tension between New Zealand green tourism marketing and some of our “less than great results in international environment measures”.
He wanted a point of view from us, as farmers, as to whether this criticism was unfounded or not.
Our angst going global reflects the reality we Kiwis don’t do moderation. As a people, we tend to be most critical of ourselves meaning we are either the very best at something or the very worst.
The international visitors I meet at Trelinnoe are confounded by this level of intense self-criticism. We call it the ‘tall poppy’ syndrome but when visitors look at our countryside and our waterways, they are struck by how free they are of plastic bottles and the detritus of modern life.
I experienced that for myself in Rome this year, where the River Tiber looked more like plastic infused treacle than the ancient waterway I expected.
The one comment many visitors make to me is that we farm animals in a free-range system here. We forget our animals are largely not cooped up 24-7 and I cherish that.
So what about the conflict between economy and environment then?
When it comes to human drinking water, we share with Switzerland the same number one ranking according to Yale and Columbia University’s Environmental Performance Index.
Switzerland is the top ranked country while New Zealand comes in at fourteenth place.
But we must also read our EPI score alongside the OECD’s examination of agricultural subsidies. As we know, New Zealand is the least subsidised farm system on earth, at 0.53 percent, whereas farm incomes in the European Union are supported to the tune of 20 percent. In Iceland it is 47 percent, Korea 50 percent, Japan 51 percent, Switzerland 56 percent, and in Norway, it is 60 percent.
The supreme irony is the call about our “less than great results,” came only two days before the UK’s Daily Mail made media here accept our farms are pretty darn carbon efficient.
That of course was the Daily Mail’s golden headline, “Buy New Zealand lamb to save the planet”.
While that story was about food production being responsible for 29 percent of global emissions, it seemed to overlook the obvious fact food is a basic physiological need. Along with water and shelter we die without it.
New Zealand produces emissions because we over achieve in food production.
When it comes to global food production, New Zealand is no island and the world is better for it.
But to produce food you need water and I am proud Hawke’s Bay Regional Council has voted eight to one to back the Ruataniwha Plains Water Storage project.
The centrepiece is a $200 million project with a dam wall 77 metres high and the resulting reservoir will cover an area of some 400 hectares. This is only slightly smaller than Sydney's central business district and double the size of Wellington's. It will lift our irrigable area from 6,000 hectares to over 20,000 hectares.
This greatly aids the development of not just our sector, but horticulture as well. We are already seeing positive indicators for how farming and value adding industries mesh.
At the beginning of this year, Heinz announced they were closing their Australian plant in favour of the Hawke's Bay. It means Heinz will no longer make sauces or ketchup for Australia. It means they’ll be eating our ketchup, there.
Realistically, there aren’t enough raw ingredients for Heinz to use only New Zealand grown product. Yet this water storage project creates the real potential for horticulture to grow by creating the means to utilise summer without fear of what happens when rain does not fall.
Environmentally, the best way to prevent the loss of top soil and nutrients is to keep pasture and crops growing.
Ohio State University’s Professor Rattan Lal has praised New Zealand for leading the world in the uplift of soil carbon. Soil carbon is increasing here partly due of that free range system I mentioned earlier.
Science is also starting to show that pasture is one of the best tools we have to keep nutrients on-farm.
To keep our pastures green demands water storage of the kind backed by Hawke’s Bay Regional Council.
Things like this is why I told that major American newspaper I honestly believe New Zealand’s farmers are way up there for environmental performance.
As the proof of the pudding is always in the eating, nothing beats seeing things with your own two eyes. With the summer break fast approaching, why not a farm stay these holidays?
-------------------------------------------------------------
Bruce Wills is the President of Federated Farmers. You can contact him here »
30 Comments
Bruce,
Keep up the good work. Am sure all our lifestyles depend to a large extent on the success of the farmers in the country. Am sufficiently environmentally aware to also support reasonable claims to keep the process as clean as practical; but understand you are certainly making efforts in that respect.
Stephen,
I have done quite a lot of work on the economics of the Ruataniwha Water Supply project. I was at the HBRC meeting Bruce refers to.
MPI made a presentation to council. They have been heavily involved in the Ruataniwha Water Supply scheme from early on - helping fund both the feasibility and pre-feasibility reports. They gave a polished presentation very much encouraging the project, and this time offering government equity funding if the project proceeds. But floundered into umms and ahhhs when questioned on the economics of the RWS scheme: Production intensification could umm ahh decrease farm profitability, umm potentially and; Yes, government has previously equity funded irrigation schemes before umm back in the days of ahhh the Ministry of Works but those schemes are now umm umm in community hands.
Those schemes are of course now in 'community' hands because they were loss making operations.
The CEO was asked why the economic analysis ignored debt servicing. His response was a bold faced statement that the councillor was wrong - debt servicing was included.
I can however assure you that the NPVs produced by Butcher and used by the project exclude all debt servicing costs.
Colin,
Thanks,
Have yet again made a mental note to myself to be cautious in future about commenting on subjects that I don't know much about.
Given my main economic priority for NZ is to grow its wealth through a more balanced current account, such that we will have to both sell more overseas, and for a while at least, buy a little less from them, then simplistically some irrigation that would help the eastern side of the North Island manage through any droughts, and or increase horticulture or agricultural output, seemed a good idea. But I accept a test should be whether the users would likely pay for the scheme over time; even if the capital would most likely need to be central or local government.
If this particular scheme isn't likely to work for whatever reason; then as a minimum it sounds like it should be back to the drawing board
Thanks Stephen.
Very much agree with you regards the current account being the most important measure regards whether we as a country are getting richer or poorer.
A minimum of a half billion debt funded capital expenditure up front in the hope that 10 years later increased production intensity may improve farm profitability seems to me to be an unlikely way to improve our CA deficit.
Not least when options to reduce input costs while maintaining similar production levels haven't even been considered.
Bruce, I wonder if you see the irony in patting yourself and the ag sector on the back in terms of securing your private profit without the need for public subsidies - and then you back this point up by telling us about the biggest publicly subsidised for private profit irrigation proposal the Hawkes Bay has ever seen!!!!
Not a penny of private landholder money has been spent to my knowledge in getting the proposal this far - it's 100% Pure central and local government subsidies that paid for it. Correct me if I'm wrong - let me know who these private investor/landholders stumping up the dosh so far have been - and I'll happily withdraw.
http://www.mpi.govt.nz/news-resources/news/hawkes-bay-successful-in-irrigation-acceleration
http://www.baybuzz.co.nz/archives/6282/
From what I've read the millions spent so far are all taxpayer/ratepayer dollars - and the proposed $600m project is likely to bankrupt the public in the area in the longer term.
No agricultural subsidies my a$$.
The detail for New Zealand is on page 189 here >
http://www.keepeek.com/oecd/media/agriculture-and-food/agricultural-pol…
Thanks - it is made up of $495m in transfers from taxpayers (and that does include central government funding contributions for irrigation schemes) and $135M transfers from consumers - total $630m in transfers.
In the greater scheme of things, that is roughly half that of the transfers to landlords via the accommodation supplement and about equal to those transfers to students via the student allowance..
Also, I wonder if this statement in that document is correct? Page 187:
The relative importance of agriculture in the New Zealand economy is higher than in most other OECD countries, with agriculture accounting for some 5% of New Zealand's GDP and 7% of its total employment.
It's about right. See table 3 and table 5 here >
Kate,
The article on the irrigation scheme suggests it is being built on "strong commercial disciplines". That implies to me, even if central and local government pay to build it, that there are likely to be reasonable charges for the water when used, that would give a fair return on the capital. Am personally perfectly happy if that is the case, and would not consider that a subsidy of any kind.
Ye of too much faith!
As was the Dunedin stadium.
That Baybuzz website coverage suggests one of the reasons the regional council was reluctant to post the 100+ submissions publicly was becuase a number were from farmers in the area who said they didn't need it and wouldn't pay for it. So, my general impression is there was not alot of "strong" in the real commercial world.
You can plug whatever numbers you want into a spreadsheet.
Kate,
I always enjoy and appreciate your submissions; and you've clearly looked into this more than I have. Simplistically it does seem to me that farmers (like the rest of us to be fair)are not the first to put their hands up to pay for something; but will do so when it's necessary (like when there is a drought on the eastern side of the island). Separately is it plausible that new water supplies could actually provide water for future farmers, especially in horticulture?
I don't know what projections have been made, but as long as there is some sort of reasonable pricing model in there, then it wouldn't qualify as a subsidy. From what you say, maybe farmers are positioning to get it for free, and that would seem wrong?
Stephen L - if any comment exemplifies the ignorance that is Labour, that was it.
Information was presented to the DCC for some years (since 2005 in my case) that the Stadium would NEVER be able to be repaid. The ODT - a mouthpiece of vested interests in my opinion and experience - is responsible for nothing of this appearing in print, despite cajoling.
Nonetheless, there is no excuse for ignorance. Clare Curran is - in my opinion and on the basis of a recent conversation - equally non-understanding of what underwrites money, well-being, or indeed, our whole way of life.
How can you make such a short-sighted comment? Modern world? We went past peak oil in '05 - and the fiscal fall-out not much later. How caqn folk still assume 'modern world'/ It beggars belief.
Until Labour catch on, they are a wasted space.
pdk,
I also always welcome your input- a very good environmental monitor on this site (and my personal gauge on such matters); so am a little concerned and somewhat intrigued to have got offside so clearly.
Best to point out that while I would probably vote for Labour if an election was held now (Norman makes the most economic sense right now, with Parker and Cunliffe not too far behind, and good old Winston actually in the game), I have no idea if they would vote for me, so to speak. Am not even remotely formally associated with any of them. So for their sake, best to say I do not speak for them. (To probably flatter myself and a couple of others on here massively, John Key frequently tries to attribute a few things we have advocated on here to being Labour policy, which does make me wonder whether they all check the site out, and have also labelled me and a couple of others as staunch inside Labour people.)
On the Dunedin Stadium; is it environmentally unsound? Was building it a waste of resources, other than money? Am not sure if you are a Dunedin resident (I'm personally helping pay for Eden Park, by the by; and that also is a once a year stadium really, although I do think Auckland needs at least one decent stadium, and EP's it for now); and if you are I understand the money concerns. I would say though that if you wanted moderately significant events in Dunedin, Carisbrook no longer cut the mustard, even if some people there thought it did. FB stadium looks more right sized than EP in Auckland, for super rugby and ITM cup games to be frank, and of course the roof seems a big plus.
Noone's going to pull it down, so in the end it will be paid for, one way or another.
On a "modern" world, best I join in the conversation when it's a more relevant topic; but for now, the world will always be more modern, by definition. The future world will certainly need to live with less fossil fuel energy, and quite possibly with less energy in total. But it still will be modern; and different to the world now or in the past.
It wasn't obvious to me that I was stepping into that minefield with the stadium comment, but there we go.
It wasn't 'the stadium' - I'm a sports type myself - but the debt. At this juncture, there isn't the freely-available energy to underwrite the repayment, not in any meaningful way.
It may be that there is a general default, or a collapse, but you can't bank on that......
The ability to get ready - become sustainable, if you will - had to be used while available. It was squandered.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/Looking-Back-on-the-Limits-of-Growth.html
Pay good attention to that graph - and the timing of the stadium debt. This is end-game stuff.
http://www.energybulletin.net/news/2012-11-01/oil-nov-1
It's weak reporting, but the last option is close to reality. The rest are optimistic (for instance, Saudi Arabia will use all it's production internally by 2030, and 'elecvtric cars' are actually 'coal cars' globally - the power has to come from somewhere....
PDK - the debt on the Dunedin Stadium is of concern. Poor budgeting is the main problem.
However the Stadium is up so it is time to move on. Personally I think more effort needs to go into getting the Stadium to pay for itself so more events needs to be held there which create profits. The stadium has to run as a profitable business in moving forward.
There are upcoming events which may not run at a profit which is of concern. Dunedin has had the opportunity to make a lot of gain out of the stadium as a South Island venue as Chch has not been in a position to host many functions.
There are many opportunities to host various types of functions and entertainment but there seems to be a lack of ingenuity, innovation and drive to get good quality events which gets bums on seats. The accoustics are pretty bad in the Stadium but I have heard from some people in the music industry that this could be improved upon.
The Stadium needs individuals with drive and determination to make it successful and those qualities appear to be severely lacking.
I think you have no idea....I think there is little sign that stadiums will make $s....Wellington's one seems another case in point....it seems someone(s) made some un-justifyable assumptions on the returns...
Seems a common mistake especially when hiring in so called professionals with business experience to advise.....
regards
Steven - your attitude of it can't be done is very negative. As I said it takes drive and determination to succeed because those that don't have it don't get too far.
If something is not working - who's in charge??? A poor tradesman blames his tools - and those weilding the hammer, (in this case the stadiums administrators and managment) are simply not performing as required.
Bruce, we are largely free of plastic botles because our population is so small that we dont have a big impact. However when you look per capita its not so rosy. In fact when you look per capita on many things the shine is off NZers.
So the challenge is to say be more green per capita or at least be in the running. AS we move forward I think such things will become more and more important, ie our reputation is at stake, lose it at our peril.
You may not believe is Peak oil and AGW but the science is overwelming on them and I think its likely that in the future we ill be penalised for the distance we are to market. Now that may not be fully justified but I suspect that we'll see any excuse for protectionalism be an issue for us in the future....
regards
http://www.sustainablecoastlines.org/Kia_Ora/Sustainable_Coastlines___About_us.html
Largely free of rubbish, yeah right. 118 tonnes of rubbish removed from out beaches by volunteers.
Scarfie - There is always going to be some rubbish it is an unavoidable fact. While some of it can be deliberately dumped there are other mechanisms that cause rubbish to be washed up on our coastlines.
High rainfall flood events cause significant rubbish to wash up on the coastlines. Everytime there is any building/land damage from flood events there will be rubbish deposited downstream and if the flood event is large enough a lot of rubbish/debris will end up out at sea and eventually some of it will make its way back to a coastline somewhere.
There is also the illegal dumping of rubbish by some careless individuals and frequently this is near waterways which adds to the problem during flood events.
Unsecured quipment can be lost off boats, boat sinkings etc all cause rubbish and debris and sometimes there are just the idiots who don't care.
There are also events like Japans Tsunami etc which cause debris and rubbish to eventually wash up somewhere.
NZ is actually a very attractive place with clean waterways and most people I know are pretty vigilant about picking up other people's rubbish. I know numerous people who regularly walk the beaches of NZ who pick up any rubbish they come across. The same applies to local rivers, creeks and waterways.
There are many countries you can travel to which the waterways will have you gagging and they aren't all in the third world. There are many waterways where the rubbish especially plastics are thick on the surface floating downstream.
I suggest if you have issues with coastline rubbish then everytime you hear of a significant flooding event go and volunteer with the clean up because those who have had their property destroyed need every bit of help they can get at such a time.
The worse time in rural areas for rubbish dumping on the sides of roads and waterways is the Xmas holiday period. Ask any rural resident of any rural community and they all have the same stories of local picnic spots and road rubbish being deposited at this time of year. Holiday makers are also known for dropping off animals on the side of the road, particularly kittens on the sides of the road at this time of year.
Steven - having lived and farmed on a busy tourist route believe me people dump heaps of kittens at xmas time. Sometimes you'll find them in bags dumped on the side of the road others are just let loose to defend for themselves. Most rural people look after their areas very well as they live and work in the community and just about everyone knows each other or will know them by association. We never had problems with locals dumping kittens or rubbish.
Disposable nappies and bags of vomit are also common during the silly season. KFC and McDonalds packaging would frequently be picked up despite no local source of these products for some 50 minutes drive. Most times you would see the cars stopped and when they pulled away the rubbish would be left behind. It is easier to go and pick it up on a regular basis as otherwise it blows into the paddocks.
You try walking down the roadside picking up rubbish with the crazy drivers going like the clappers some towing boats or caravans most of them certainly don't slow down. I could write a book of stories on town meets country on a main tourist route.
Rural people don't put kittens on the side of the road steven - they drown them, which apparently is now frowned upon ;-)
We have a cat-free farm. We shoot them. We used to trap them as they are 'dumped cats', and then give them to the SPCA. You can tell they are dumped because they come around the houses like tamed cats. We can get up to 15 a year, and some times - usually after Christmas the trap can't keep up, hence the move to shooting.
Native bird life in the covenanted bush on farm has gone ahead in leaps and bounds since we bought in our cat-free policy.
We welcome your comments below. If you are not already registered, please register to comment.
Remember we welcome robust, respectful and insightful debate. We don't welcome abusive or defamatory comments and will de-register those repeatedly making such comments. Our current comment policy is here.