Where is the New Zealand economy headed?
Over the past few years food producers in New Zealand have been subjected to a relentless smear campaign by lobby groups, media and the government. The general public has been brainwashed to think that our food production needs radical change. This Blame Game has focused on GHG emissions, water quality, and biodiversity. It’s time to put the record straight.
Over half of this country is in trees, mountains, natural cover. ALL farming is 39% of total land area. A projection of current trends is shown in the graph on page 3. How is New Zealand going to earn a high standard of living? What happened to “the Switzerland of the Pacific”? Is Auckland really the powerhouse of the economy? How would Auckland get on as a separate nation like Singapore?
Contradictions, double standards, symbolic gestures
“The Environment” has become a religion for some people. Lobby groups get their funding by creating anxiety. The Green Party gets most of its votes from wealthy electorates, so the rich, who tend to have the most GHG emissions from driving and flying, can appease their consciences.
New Zealand has clean water
Google lists New Zealand as one of seven nations with the cleanest water in the world. What’s the prize for being cleaner than that? There is an annual swimming race in the Waikato river through Hamilton, though the race stops short of the sewer outlet. Auckland beaches are swimmable some of the time. How many rivers in New Zealand are not swimmable? There are problems with E. coli sometimes, but that is usually because of birds.
Ten thousand flamingos... a beautiful sight but, you wouldn't want to swim there.
Double standards apply: cities escape severe fines for breaches of sewage and stormwater regulations, but food producers get hammered.
Rivers aren’t fenced in Africa
Another contradiction in the official line is “that sediment is bad”.
But where did human civilisations set up? Today there is huge angst in Vietnam about the Chinese building more dams on the headwaters of the Mekong river, because the annual floods bring new soil to farmers in Vietnam, renewed fertility.
Nutrient: there is huge pressure to keep animals out of waterways here, yet the same people enjoy watching large animals in Africa playing in rivers and lakes. Three tonne hippos live in the water. Strangely enough, Africa has 22 times the number of freshwater fish species than New Zealand, 1,279 versus 58. Nutrient feeds life. Other countries fly fertiliser onto lakes to feed plant life to grow bigger fish.
- Do “greenies” understand the big picture? Big animals live in African rivers and there are 1279 species of freshwater fish, compared to 58 in New Zealand’s barren rivers, where the water is too clean.
- Native fish in New Zealand thrive in unfenced pools in well developed farmland, where “piranha like” brown trout are not present, and more nutrients are in the water (PhD research paper).
- And Australian police have detained more than two hundred people who have deliberately lit fires… but global warming gets blamed.
Biodiversity
New Zealand always had poor biodiversity
At their peak, livestock were grazed over 60% of New Zealand’s land area. That’s down to 37% now. Large areas have reverted to scrub and native bush, and many hectares have been retired by DOC or donated by food producers as QE2 covenants. Some species of native birds have grown in numbers, and some species have self introduced.
Why taxing methane is theft
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It is unjust. It fails to recognise the natural carbon cycle.
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It is unscientific. The method of assessing the levels of methane from ruminants is flawed.
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It is unfair. The assumptions are based on figures that are officially + or – 50%.
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It is unlawful. The Paris Agreement said to exclude food production.
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It is economic madness. Why leg-rope the sector leading the recovery?
The Paris Accord has a goal of stabilising GHG emissions in a way that does not reduce food production. New Zealand agriculture has complied with those requirements since 1990. New Zealand is squandering its land resource, with no planning around food security for a population which is increasing by two percent per year.
Reinventing New Zealand?
With the odd exception, New Zealand is now led by people who have never been hungry, never fought in a war, and never run a business. Will we have the discipline, as our forefathers did, to rebuild at an affordable cost?
Reality check
The current government is engaged in granting an extra holiday, and five more days of sick leave. “Let’s stop moving”… Meanwhile, new immigrants are fast taking over ownership of the best cashflow businesses, because they work hard, and avoid employment and overtime costs by working within the family. Politicians pander to the bottom 20% of society while imposing more and more cost on businesses. How is New Zealand going to compete on the world stage?
Just like animal feedlots, the feed is trucked in and the waste piped out. New Zealand earns its living from the land, not from the cities.
Written by Derek Daniell, farmer in the Wairarapa. “It’s a huge worry to witness the kneejerk, political response to the Paris Accord… blame the animals? There is so much muddled thinking for the short term, not for a sustainable New Zealand.”
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NZ’s productivity crisis
- The internal cost structure to build houses and roads is well above what our export sector can afford.
- Endless environmental reports. What % of NZ’s 94,000km of roads are an “environmental disaster”?
- 15 years to action an irrigation scheme while costs double and triple.
- Every extra bureaucrat has to justify his/her existence. The regulators are breeding.
- Symbolic gesture: banning exploration for oil and gas will lead to more imported energy.
- Economy held together by productivity increase in the agricultural sector.
- You will pay indirectly for the carbon credits paid to rich people who plant trees. One estimate is $7,000 per household.
Solutions
- The planet is overstocked with people, the root of all our problems? Cap New Zealand’s population at 5 million.
- New Zealand’s Paris Accord targets: remove ruminant emissions. Remove the government guarantee of carbon credit payments for planting trees.
- Continue oil and gas exploration, target self- sufficiency.
- Impose a significant entry charge on tourists. Increase foreign visitor charges for all tax payer created facilities, e.g. Aotearoa trail. It works in Bhutan.
- New Zealand agriculture is more regenerative of soil fertility than most countries in the world. Don’t handicap food production with stupid regulations.
Awesome article. Thank you so much for taking the time to write and publish it. You made me day getting this the mail today. I will share as far as I can.
Good commonsense information that our politicians need to heed
Well written, my wife, kids and I have been wondering how to put all this together for some time, congratulations and well done for an article that covers the conversations we have with urban and rural people alike, everyone is sick of regulation, every business lives in fear of what they havnt done as opposed to what they have done. Government puts up minimum wage, puts up cost of regulation, drives up inflation, makes everything more expensive, and so it begins. Our young are taught not to go on farms, even farm kids as “it is very dangerous”, as we know farm kids are more likely to be responsible, look after the environment, care for animals, help the community, and know what work is, what is the cost of not teaching our young ones these responsibilities. Our farmers are so hogtied through regulation you can’t teach tractor skills, or motorbike skills or chainsaw skills, ” what if something happens” so they take our hard earned cash and set up Dairy NZ to put a diagram of when to inseminate a cow, I thought the farmer should teach that, not some guy behind the editing desk in Auckland. The world is slowly losing its compass, I agree totally with your information, let’s hope someone that can do something sees it, thanks again for a good read, cheers Terry and family
It feels to me that everyday farmers are starting to be targeted and blamed more and more. It’s almost as if the urban population are led to believe that farmers are the enemy and can do no right. But in reality we should be being praised as we our the backbone of this country, and if it were not for farmers this country would of been in a greater and more severe economic crisis than we are already in. So I just hope that sooner rather than later the majority of NZ open their eyes and see that farmers actually care about the environment and climate change, and are willing to adapt. Rather than just being criticized and hammered with new taxes and regulations.
Hi good to here some positive thoughts sick of being blamed Our lovely ruminants don’t make carbon ! Just a cycle . Need credits for our grass and trees I be farming well neutral People need to wake up keep up good work Cheers From broken down old Southland Farmer rob miller
When the Sink or Swim pamphlet arrived in our box we were delighted that someone had expressed so many of our misgivings about the way we are being governed . . . not just agriculturally but in every govt department. Our own distress has been largely caused by DOC and their management of well over half the country when you take into consideration the increasing area of private land being given up to DOC-style enterprises which devour such a mountain of public money.
There is no hope of real change through politics as they stand today. There are no real alternatives of offer at the coming election because it is the system which needs to change not just the policies.
We wait in hope for some gigantic upheaval which might force real change.
Thank you Derek. You have expressed a very real situation from a farmers’ point of view, one with which we can all sympathise.
Thank you Derek for writing and putting out there SINK OR SWIM .
we will be sharing your very well written article .
So good to see someone knows what they are talking about. Its time that the people who are slamming our farmers walked for a week or two in there shoes or boots. As they seem to think all they are doing in walking around in mud.
Sink or Swim came in the Farmers Weekly. Farming people already know this stuff is true. Share with your urban friends.
Thank you for substantiating concerns about where we’re heading – down a slippery slope.
The farmers need recognition for their tremendous contribution to our nation’s economy, not this nonsense being promoted and perpetuated by groups, political included, of veganism, carbon emissions etc etc. It’s frightening their headstrong and sinister push to limit farmers and us, what we can do and can’t do with our farm or plot of land.
Thank you for your post.
Thanks Derek for simply telling the truth about what is happening to this country. It is incumbent on all of us who are able to influence change to support this message before it is too late.
John would have been so proud.
Clive Bibby.
The first paragraph of the solutions is so true. The root of all the problems are the amount of humans breeding into the planet. There is no other mammal that could get away with this type of unchecked growth. We need to take ownership of this fact and do something about it. Blaming climate change etc etc on farming and livestock is simply a copout.
Excellent article Derek. I am very keen to distribute this paper among as many outlets as I can think of but I have one comment to make which I believe would improve it. I would like to see references included as to the source of your data gathering such as in ‘land use in NZ’, the data included in ‘NZ has clean water’ and your biodiversity column etc. I think this would really improve the credibility of the article especially when it is read by urban dwellers. Farmers already know these truths, but urban dwellers need education in a hurry.