Regulation eyed in new initiative

Farmers nationwide may soon have a one-stop-shop where they can outsource regulation and compliance paperwork and thus reduce stress.

The yet-to-be-named initiative, intended to be a limited liability company subsidiary of Federated Farmers with a small number of employees and a different brand to the parent company, was presented to the Lower Waitaki - South Coastal Canterbury Zone Committee.

It is set to be launched at the Canterbury A&P Show in Christchurch on November 9 to 11.

Federated Farmers arable section vice president Colin Hurst, who farms in Makikihi, told the committee the initiative would reduce stress and costs associated with compliance and regulation.

It would also help increase productivity, allowing farmers to focus on farming.

‘‘Farmers face increasing regulations - there are more of them and they are more complex. Regulators don’t understand farming and what works on the farm.

‘‘Farming is receiving a bad rap in the public eye and reducing these issues requires increasingly specialist knowledge, skills and credibility.’’

Political and consumer pressures drove an increase in regulation and compliance that, in a worst case scenario, could prohibit farming, he said.

Zone committee member Peter McIlraith agreed saying when he lived in the United Kingdom he saw this happen.

‘‘It is not overstating it to say [regulation] can stop farming. In the UK regulation came through which did destroy farming,’’ McIlraith said.

He said a Welsh farm he visited two years ago, which previously had a farmhouse, hen house, sheep and arable land, had been converted for tourism and was not producing much.

Regulations - such as needing consent to put in a fence - ’’killed it’’.

‘‘It is not that we don’t want to protect the environment, but we don’t want industry behind it that pushes it too far,’’ McIlraith said.

The initiative would raise the profile of farming and promote farmers as good stewards of the land. It was expected to have two levels - leading and compliance.

‘‘Farmers outsource to the initiative, which works on their behalf with regulators,’’ he said.

Federated Farmers chief executive Graham Smith said the organisation would be exploring need for the initiative and whether or not there is a mandate for the organisation to set it up.

The initiative was likely to be piloted in Canterbury before going nationwide.