Crowds come out as farmers seek certainty
Attendance at Fieldays is picking up after a thunderstorm kept people away on the opening day of the four-day event. Angry scenes of farmers lining up their tractors in convoys to protest against tighter environmental regulations earlier this year were absent from the event.
Fieldays chief executive Peter Nation said attendance had picked up on day two with an improvement in the weather.
“It’s a hell of a lot stronger than yesterday,” he said, adding that daylight saving looked to have encouraged people to come along.
The agricultural showpiece near Hamilton, which usually draws around 30,000 people a day, has attracted about 1000 exhibitors — down by about 5 per cent from the norm.
The event was canned in 2020 due to Covid-19 but was held in June last year in between lockdowns.
“Talking to the exhibitors, a number of them have had a really good day — so it looks like quality versus quantity,” Nation said.
The onset of the Omicron variant meant this year’s Fieldays was put off from June — normally a quiet time for farmers — until this month.
ANZ agriculture economist Susan Kilsby said the event was not as busy as it had been in recent years.
“As far as how farmers are feeling, there is a lot of uncertainty around global economic conditions, interest rates, and regulatory change,” she said.
“The long-term trend around agriculture and food pricing is strong.
“There will be some softening in some sectors this year due to global economic conditions being a bit more challenged.
“But I do think that demand for food will be there because we don’t have a huge number of suppliers across most commodities.”
In terms of regulatory change, Kilsby said farmers were resilient.
“Hopefully there will be some agreement by the end of the year on environmental regulation, because there are some fragmented views at the moment,” she said.
Silver Fern Farms chief executive Simon Limmer said, after travelling across the country recently, the sense of uncertainty that farmers have is “palpable” around new regulatory changes.
He said there is a critical need for the technology and tools to make a step change.
Garry Diack, Ravensdown’s chief executive, said the industry owed it to farmers to partner, invest and collaborate to help solve the most significant challenge of the time.
“We’re making good progress with advancements in things like precision fertiliser, effluent pond systems and soil science, but there’s much more we can all achieve together.”
In a report timed to coincide with Fieldays, the Ministry for Primary
Industries said it expected food and fibre export revenue to reach a record $55 billion in the year to June 30, 2023 — higher than the earlier forecast made in June this year.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern on Wednesday formally launched the Centre for Climate Action on Agricultural Emissions and Agriculture Minister Damien
O’connor outlined the first three projects.
The launch came against a backdrop of the Government also announcing it would bring all scientifically robust forms of sequestration into the emissions trading scheme (ETS), starting in 2025.
The move came after a strong lobby from the sector that argued the
Government’s initial plan would have significant negative implications for sheep, beef and deer farmers.
The Centre for Climate Action is a joint venture that included Anzco Foods, Fonterra, the Ministry for Primary Industries, Ravensdown, Silver Fern Farms and Synlait. In the past week, Rabobank also signed on to join the partnership.
The centre is focused on reducing agriculture emissions through research and development, including a substantial new 50:50 publicprivate joint venture.
According to Ardern, partners in the new joint venture have made an indicative funding commitment that would rise to about $35 million a year by 2025, matched by the
Government.
This would see about $170m invested over the first four years.
The first of the three announced projects was an investment of $7.8m, which would go alongside Ruminant Biotech’s $9.5m contribution, to develop a methane-inhibiting capsule, or bolus, that delivered at least a 70 per cent reduction in methane whilst active, O’connor said.
The second project would involve an investment of more than $2.2m, alongside a $2m contribution from Beef + Lamb New Zealand and other industry partners, to increase the supply of low-methane rams through genetic selection.
The third would invest about $6m in greenhouse gas measurement equipment and infrastructure.
“Making sure that farmers can use these things is what this joint venture is about,” O’connor said.
On another front, Nestle NZ and Fonterra said they had teamed up to create the first zero-emissions farm over the next five years.
In that time the farm, run with copartner Dairy Trust Taranaki, would examine all aspects of farm operations to reduce carbon with the aim of cutting emissions by 30 per cent by mid-2027, and a 10-year ambition of reaching net-zero carbon emissions. — Additional reporting
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