Speak up over water, urges PM
Prime Minister Bill English says the public is unaware of the improvements that farmers have made to freshwater quality.
New Zealanders had a generally favourable view of farmers and agriculture, ‘‘but you can’t trade on that’’.
Responding to a just released KPMG report that farming had lost the ‘‘hearts and minds battle’’ over water quality, English said he did not agree, although conceded the sector needed to communicate with the wider public in a way that made sense to it.
‘‘They need to communicate about the huge amount of investment and sophistication that is now going into managing water quality. There’s thousands of kilometres of riparian planting, there’s people investing millions in all aspects of water quality, and changing their farming practices the public is generally totally unaware of all that.’’
Asked if water quality would become a key election issue, he said it would be debated, but ‘‘more importantly it’s an important issue in getting value out of New Zealand’s strategic advantage, which is we have water and industries based around that water. In my view we’ve got the capacity and tools to manage the value of this precious resource’’.
English said he never liked to miss a Fieldays but this year it had coincided with a trade and aid Pacific Mission visit to the Cook Islands and Niue.
On the state of the agricultural economy, he said it was in ‘‘fairly good heart’’ with horticulture strong, dairy picking up and sheep and beef marginally better. ’’I’ve found the levels of confidence not too bad, having the exchange rate round US70C has been helpful, we hoped it would drop below 70c as it was for a while, because the continued strength of the US economy is the most important driver in confidence of our primary exports.’’
Improvements in the dairy payout to farmers by Fonterra and other processors had helped contribute to the Budget surplus, although the economy was more diverse and not reliant just on dairy. Even when dairy prices had fallen over recent years, revenue had held up well because of the more diverse base. However, the recent dairy upturn had helped lift the terms of trade.
The Government was now focusing on the free trade agreement with Europe, which will include Britain until it finally exits out of the EU, and the upgrade of the Chinese FTA. It would continue working on the TPP - now dubbed the TPP11 after the US pulled out. ’’We believe it’s worth the benefits and can be done in a way that enables the US to join in later if they change policy.’’