Farmers ‘need to become greenies’

‘‘Farming is an essential service – people need to eat. But we have rules coming at us like a freight train and regulations hitting us like a tidal wave.’’ Dan Steele

Dan Steele is not only a farmer and a tourism operator, he is also a proud ‘‘greenie’’.

And he is urging other farmers to embrace conservation on their own farms.

‘‘As New Zealand’s biggest landowners we have got to lead the conservation movement.

‘‘I think you have got to be a conservationist if you want a better world and that means being a greenie,’’ Steele said.

He urged all farmers to get involved in a catchment group, plant trees on marginal land, establish wetlands and trap predators to protect native wildlife.

The straight-talking farmer was the guest speaker at a mid-winter dinner, hosted by Beef + Lamb New Zealand’s Southern South Island Farmer Council, in Gore on Thursday night.

Steele owns Blue Duck Station, a 1460-hectare property surrounded by the Whanganui National Park, and situated on the banks of the Whanganui and Retaruke Rivers in the Ruapehu district.

Steele said farmers had to focus on making New Zealand agriculture better.

Although only 3 per cent of the population, farmers were the biggest landowners in New Zealand, he said.

‘‘New Zealand is so bloody unique and we have so much going for us.’’

However, children of farmers often did not want to continue the farming legacy and that was a real problem, Steele said.

‘‘Farming is an essential service – people need to eat. But we have rules coming at us like a freight train and regulations hitting us like a tidal wave.’’

Steele believed both veganism and factory farming were wrong, and that farmers had to be ‘‘somewhere in the middle’’.

‘‘We have to move from being price-takers to price-makers.

‘‘We have got to have products that are in demand so we can command premiums – that means flipping the supply and demand situation on its head.’’ Steele believed one of the biggest opportunities for farmers was planting forestry on marginal land.

‘‘You could put about 10 per cent of your farm in trees.’’

However, Steele did not support the blanket planting of pine trees on productive farmland solely for carbon credits. He described the forestry regime as an ‘‘absolute ballsup’’ saying there had been no forethought to environmental impacts or harvesting.

Steele urged all farmers to join catchment groups, protect native bush and establish wetlands in areas that were prone to pugging.

He also encouraged the use of predator traps on farms to protect native wildlife such as the endemic blue duck (whio), after which his farm is named.

‘‘We need to pull our socks up. ‘‘We own a lot of New Zealand and that is a huge responsibility – we need to show our urban cousins how much we care about the land.’’

Steele also encouraged farmers to embrace the tourism sector as he believed it had the best marketing potential for New Zealand.

Fourteen months ago he opened the country’s most remote finedining restaurant on Blue Duck Station.

The restaurant offers a 10-course degustation menu and showcases the region’s finest produce.

Steele enjoys chatting to guests and his children often remarked that he ‘‘goes to work to talk’’.

‘‘I love New Zealand and telling our story to clients,’’ he said.