Fast footwork on the farm in 2016
‘‘You’re a clever cow to skip and dance while the land beneath you is disappearing down the hill.’’
Farmer Derrick Milton’s quote – prompted by his having to rescue his cattle stranded by the Kaikoura earthquake – was rated one of New Zealand’s best this year.
It also served as an apt metaphor for the nimbleness required by farmers to react to changing circumstances, whether on or off farm. By year’s end the outlook for the primary sector had changed in a way that could not have been predicted at the beginning of 2016.
Although the Kaikoura earthquake literally shook up the farming landscape, the trade and political fault lines that emerged – Brexit, Trump and the end of the Trans-pacific Partnership Agreement – will have effects yet to be measured.
The comeback story was the dairy industry. In January, prices for whole milk powder were languishing at US$1952, but by year’s end they had rocketed to US$3568.
The prices farmers were prepared to shell out on cows also rose to pre-slump levels, and the median value of dairy farms in the last 12 months lifted 33 per cent, although sales volumes were well down.
ASB economist Nathan Penny said he expected the dairy turnaround to dominate the rural land market scene in 2017.
By contrast, sheep farmers were dismayed by prices both for meat and wool, and a Beef+lamb NZ forecast that incomes for the 2016-17 year would be cut by 13 per cent. Any improvement in lamb prices would come ‘‘in baby steps’’, according to Penny.
Beef was more buoyant, as it has been for several years now, underpinned by demand from the United States and a relative lack of competition from Australian and South American producers.
The country’s largest meat processing co-operative, Silver Fern Farms, put its faith in a $267 million merger with Chinese company Shanghai Maling after overwhelming shareholder support.
Former prime minister John Key and Chinese president Xi Jinping agreed in principle that New Zealand would be able to export chilled meat to China. The deal could add millions of dollars to the value of New Zealand’s red meat exports to China, which stand at $1.55 billion a year.
Horticulture continued to be a good news story, recording 40 per cent growth in exports over the past two years. Both agricultural trade envoy Mike Petersen and former Federated Farmers president Bruce Wills predict the industry will become the country’s biggest export earner some day, although there is still a yawning gap between dairy and horticulture returns ($13.2b compared with $4.9b). Wine and kiwifruit were the standout performers, followed by apples and an array of produce including potatoes, onions, avocados and berries.
Forestry is the quiet achiever of the primary sector, earning $5.1b a year in exports, and that figure is set to rise, driven by increasing harvest volumes. Strong domestic demand for construction also underpins the success of forestry.
Farming continues to suffer an image problem. The issue of freshwater quality dominated, and, as in the Tararua district, Waikato is struggling to come to grips with pollution amid the temporary derailing of its Healthy Rivers plan.
On the plus side, Landcorp put a stop to its ruinous pine-to-dairy conversion on the Central Plateau.
It took only one media flurry by animal activists Farmwatch on rough treatment of bobby calves to undermine dairying’s public relations efforts.
No matter what the political uncertainties, in farming weather is a constant – constantly unpredictable that is. At the beginning of the year farmers in North Canterbury entered their second year of drought, while in the North Island winter and spring was dubbed ‘‘the big wet’’.
Notable personalities who departed the scene included Helen Kelly, a tireless advocate for farm workers’ rights; Country Calendar‘s Frank Torley; the man who helped put Martinborough on the world wine map, Richard Riddiford; grasses scientist Henry Connor; and irrigation leader and North Otago farmer Sid Hurst.