Environmental rules apply to everyone
The dairy industry has come on in leaps and bounds in environmental performance and no longer deserves to be held in the same regard it was 10 years ago.
Co-operation and Development working party’s report on integrating environmental and economic policies, Smith released a statement saying:
‘‘New Zealand is generally very well ranked as a good country in which to do business and create jobs, but this report highlights real problems in our system of environmental regulation.
‘‘We scored the worst when it came to administrative burdens, with the highest alongside Israel, Canada and Iceland. This is because of the high number of contact points and applications required by businesses to comply with our RMA.’’ So why do we make it so hard? All the average person wants is a system of fair rules for all. The accusatory finger-pointing approach to avoid our responsibilities is not helpful.
Ultimately, our country loses out if the agricultural industry is singled out as a problem with a blind eye turned on commensurate urban compliance issues. We need to build an even-handed evidence-based approach to our environmental regulation that is inclusive of all New Zealand. Our environment cannot tell the difference of who is harming it, but our wallets can.
As the OECD working party’s report highlights, high environmental standards do not have to mean high administrative costs. If we can sort this out in the review of our RMA, then perhaps we can expect a more even playing field.
We need to find ways to reduce our environmental policy red tape and improve the business friendliness of our bureaucratic procedures. The dairy industry has come on in leaps and bounds in environmental performance and does not deserve to be held in the same regard it was 10 years ago. Not all farmers are bad, and the hundreds of millions of dollars invested by them is not to be sniffed at.
I accept the general bias in the media against dairying today had some foundation 10 years ago but not now.
Basing a whole industry on the dregs is not conducive to moving forward. The RMA reform will hopefully ensure planning processes and decision making become focused on the outcome rather than the process.
This should put all businesses and councils on a more even keel where we can boost each other up rather than let each other take the fall.
Chris Lewis is Federated Farmers Waikato provincial president. I have totally pulled my ‘‘production’’ head in as a response to the low milk price, which ironically seems to be heading back up again on the back of short supply.
The cows are getting milked once a day, I am on a longer 40-day round and the cows are being offered just whatever grass is in the paddock every 24 hours and a couple of bales of home-grown silage.
Unfortunately, the amount of milk going in the vat compared with the cost of power it takes to run the shed as well as the $100 a day for the silage and the rent I pay for the farm mean the costs keep climbing.
I am glad I am not having to pay a worker to milk the cows because it is cashflow, not profit.
There is no spare cash for anything and the bright side of that is, I have really weeded out what I need to buy as compared with what I want to buy. I just hope this lesson stays with me when the good times return because it is a valuable lesson when there are so many third parties cashing in on dairy farming.
Many of these third parties – veterinarians, semen companies and fertiliser companies – have integrated themselves so deeply into our farming systems that we have accepted them as vital elements in the way our businesses run.
But when times are tough, as they have been for me year on year, you start getting really cynical about every dollar spent and start to question the validity of the purchase.
Of course there are some businesses like Fonterra Farm Source that make it