Smart green agriculture
Smart green agriculture
Speech to
Green Party North Island Policy Conference February
2013
Russel Norman
We New Zealanders love good
food. We know that having enough good food is at the heart
of a good life.
New Zealand farmers work hard to
grow that food. Farmers get up early, work long hours in
often unsure conditions and at the moment are looking up to
the blue skies and down to the dry soil.
While we
enjoy, and are proud of, the produce we grow here in New
Zealand, the reality is that most of the food and fibre that
our farmers produce goes offshore to other eaters, or
builders, or manufacturers. Our economy relies to a
significant extent on this trade and its the food trade that
I want to talk about today.
There are two kinds of
food traded in the world.
There are those
anonymous shipping containers of anonymous products that
enter the giant commodity pool, cheap products that get
moved around the world with no focus on where they are from
or their other qualities. They are industrial food
commodities. Industrial food commodities are defined by
their price, their cheapness. The producers of these
ingredients get low prices and capture very little of the
value chain – most of the value is added in the processing
and retailing, and in this model that value is captured by
others.
And then there are the high quality foods,
products with good reputations that customers will pay more
for. These are products that proudly state where they come
from, how they were grown and processed. Real food grown by
real people in a real country that stands behind its food
exports. Real food is defined by its provenance. The
producers of real food know their customers and capture much
of the value from field to factory to shop.
We in
New Zealand need to decide whether we want to produce
industrial ingredients or real food with proud provenance.
As customers around the world increase their
demand for clean, green and safe food, New Zealand has the
opportunity to step in and provide real food to them. We
have the opportunity to look after our environment, produce
high quality food, and get paid handsomely for
it.
But the track that this Government, and
previous governments, have us on is a track for producing
cheap industrial food ingredients. It is a track that will
undermine our reputation for producing clean green and safe
food. The nitrification inhibitor contamination of our milk
was a warning to us of the dangers of the industrial
agriculture model.
I want to talk to you today
about why we need to change course in our agricultural
sector, and how the Green Party is going to work towards
achieving that.
Issue
So
what is the issue?
Almost a decade ago, the
Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment investigated
the impact of intensification of dairy in New Zealand. He
described New Zealand’s farming systems as ‘financially
and environmentally brittle’. This has never been truer
than it is today. Our current agricultural industries keep
the environment and often farmers, at the brink, or over the
brink, of disaster as they push the land further and further
in an effort to get more and more out of it. Policies
supported by this National government, the previous Labour
Government and organisations like Federated Farmers, have
pushed farmers into an ever increasing intensification model
that we just can’t sustain.
The number of cows
that this land of ours can sustainably carry has already
been surpassed in many regions, even as we see more land
converting to dairy. Just in the time since the
Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment described our
farming systems as brittle, the total amount of land in
dairying has increased by another 15 percent, and on each of
those hectares we are squeezing in more cows than ever
before.
For successive governments we have had
nothing but a push for more and more intensive dairy as our
route to success. This National Government says they plan to
triple agri-food exports from $20b to $58b by 2025; they
plan to do it by producing even more cheap industrial food
commodities. That’s not value-adding, that’s blind
allegiance to a failing economic strategy.
But is
this sustainable?
One of the most fundamental
indicators of sustainability, our waterways, are telling us
about the impact of this huge growth in dairying. Fifty-two
percent of our monitored waters have been classified as
unsafe for swimming. That’s not the image that we portray
to the world for selling our products or promoting tourism.
And most crucially, that’s not the legacy that I want to
give to my children. Lake Tutira, just north of here, is not
meant to be closed for swimming because it is a health
hazard. Dairy intensification is the number one driver of
increasing water pollution in New Zealand. Our six million
dairy cows produce as much effluent as 84 million
people.
We are also facing the challenge of climate
change. Climate change is already being felt profoundly by
our farmers. The twin plagues of droughts and floods are
affecting the way in which we can grow food and fibre in New
Zealand, and they are certainly affecting the global
markets. Other large producing nations, such as our
neighbour Australia and the United States, are feeling the
catastrophic effects of extreme weather on their ability to
produce food in the same way. In the United States 80
percent of their agricultural land experienced drought last
year.
So we have two challenges emerging from
climate change for agriculture. Firstly, an immediate
challenge to reduce emissions, to play our part in the fight
to avoid runaway climate change. Secondly, a challenge to
focus our agricultural techniques and strategy on producing
within the new reality and New Zealand’s changing climate
and weather conditions. The face of farming is changing with
the climate. You know this first hand in this part of the
country. It is dry, dry, dry and we are all hoping to see
more rain up this way.
As well as having to adapt
to a new climate, farmers in New Zealand are having to adapt
to the new agribusiness focus. The Government's focus on
ever increasing production of milk powder at whatever cost
is putting that cost onto our environment, but it’s also
putting that cost onto the farmers. Dairy farmers have to
take on huge amounts of debt to convert to dairy and get the
water they need, the feed they need, and the chemical inputs
to increase production. That treadmill of debt and
production is not sustainable. Land prices are being pushed
up by overseas buyers and by the tax system that encourages
farming for capital gains. And it’s why you see farmers
going out of business, as you have seen here in the
Hawke’s Bay. Workers on dairy farms are feeling the heat
in the form of low wages and poor conditions.
Many
New Zealanders want to turn that tide and give our farms
some well needed stability and longevity. Next year is the
International Year of Family Farming with a strap line,
‘Feeding The World, Caring For The Earth. Internationally
it is recognised that family, food production and caring for
the earth are connected. The Green Party recognises it too,
but National seems to be on a different planet. Government
owned Landcorp, New Zealand’s biggest dairy farmer, is
setting a poor example of intensive corporate farming,
relying on unsustainable chemical fertilisers and
interventions, rather than a family farm model of biological
and organic systems, more profitable for the family and
caring for the earth. We’re not saying we against
corporate farms per se, but we are saying we are strongly in
favour of family farms.
We need a redesign of the
farming system.
Value of
agriculture
The turning around of this
agricultural titanic is not a simple proposition.
Agriculture contributes $30 billion to the New Zealand
economy, and makes up 25% of our export revenue.
To
establish how to get the most from our agricultural sector
we need to ask: what is New Zealand’s agricultural value
proposition? What do we offer to our markets around the
world that is special and different?
First off I
can tell you what it’s not.
It’s not
industrial agriculture. It’s not pouring anonymous
commodity ingredients into the global pot. It’s not
producing the cheapest products at whatever cost.
Other
agricultural production around the world can fill these
markets. We have aspirations for environmental and labour
standards that mean we can’t compete with those countries
with lower standards.
What New Zealand can offer
is clean, green, and safe food - the food that customers
around the world want to feed to their kids. Food with
provenance.
We can offer food that customers want
– food with a story of environmental protection, animal
welfare, safety, and traceability. We can use our expertise
to develop modern agricultural methods and technology that
can also be exported, helping other countries to reduce
their environmental impact and ensure clean
food.
That’s what we have to offer. And that’s
what we have to offer.
We can no longer focus our
growth on squeezing more and more cows on the same bit of
land. New Zealand needs to do production smarter and do it
loudly so that people know what we have to sell and want to
buy it. We should be selling a diverse range of high
quality, value-added products with our name plastered all
over them so that customers can ask for them by
name.
We are a small country that can actually plan
our agricultural exports to get the highest price for high
quality products and well trusted supply chain. The Riddet
Institute, our agri-food centre of research excellence based
at Massey Uni, released a report last year that said we only
need 20 great international retail relationships to
transform our whole industry.
We need to get to
know our customers instead of the middle
men.
The push for
intensification
So why then, does the
Government’s current strategy rely on a race to produce
more and more milk powder at whatever cost? Here in the
Hawkes Bay we have a prime example of how this race for
intensification plays out.
The Hawke’s Bay
Regional Council is focused on channelling $80 million of
public subsidies into the proposed Ruataniwha reservoir and
irrigation scheme to dam the Makaroro River. The Council
locked in this huge expenditure before a feasibility study
had even been completed to show the need for, and cost and
benefits of, such a dam, let alone how you can intensify on
such a massive scale without huge downstream environmental
pollution.
What will this water be used for? A good
proportion of it will be used to allow more milk powder to
be produced off this land. Which means more cows on this
land. Which means more dirty rivers.
We already
have significant water quality problems in the Tukituki
River without further intensification.
There will
be a charge for this water. That charge will be able to be
paid by dairy agribusiness corporations with huge debt,
which will boost production through intensification, to
service that debt. This dam will bring more large scale
industrial dairy farms to the Hawke's Bay, driven by debt
and shareholders to exploit the land, the rivers, the cows
and the workers.
The Regional Council is meant to
look after and manage our rivers, wetlands and aquifers.
Instead they are subsidising pollution.
And this
intensification also takes us away from the green grass fed
dairy that our advertising campaigns will have us believe.
Green Party agriculture spokesperson Steffan Browning has
been looking into stock feed imports. He found that last
year we imported 1.2 million tonnes of feed for stock. That
was an increase of 10 percent on the year before. The vast
majority of that, more than 90 percent was palm kernel meal,
which is inextricably linked to deforestation of our most
precious rainforests. The other imports were from countries
that use genetically engineered crops, such as the 12,000
tonnes of cotton seed meal from Australia. Our increased
production of milk powder comes on the back of rainforest
destruction, and GE feed. Not quite a 100 percent pure
story.
Time for change
In
2009 I asked the Northland Dairy Development Trust at their
Conference the following question: Is the aim of the dairy
sector to maximise profits or to maximise milk
production?
I still think that is the real choice
facing the industry. Maximising profits and maximising
production volumes have for a long time been seen as the
same thing. I believe that these objectives are now actually
in opposition. The impacts of dairy intensification are
impacting our environment in ways that threaten our markets.
Recently when comments from Massey Uni ecologist Dr Mike Joy
questioning our environmental credentials were broadcast
internationally, it sent shockwaves through our tourism and
primary industries. The response of the Government and its
allies in the PR industry was to try to intimidate him into
silence, rather than addressing the real issues. They wanted
a cover-up rather than a clean-up.
Last month two
of our fertiliser companies had to withdraw their products
from the shelf after traces of the chemical DCD were found
in milk. It is difficult to overestimate the danger that
these traces represent to our dairy exports.
This
Government is holding our clean green brand up as a nice to
have. Our Prime Minister, and he is the Minister of Tourism
too let’s not forget, said of our 100 percent pure brand
that it needs to be taken with a pinch of salt, and compared
it to the McDonald’s slogan ‘I’m loving it’. But if
our international markets conclude that the brand is a sham,
it will all come falling down and we will lose our marketing
advantage.
This is an accident waiting to
happen.
There are many calling for a strategic
change, and have been doing so for decades. A strategy for
the agricultural sector is required. Implementation will be
the challenge, but the will and the agreement for a
strategic approach is there.
Many groups have
talked about a vision for agriculture. Last year the Riddet
Institute set out the ‘how’ of transforming our
agri-food industry and we agree with much of the strategy in
their four pillars.
1. Being consumer
driven. Looking to what the highest value markets want and
providing them with that high quality, safe, green food.
2. Investment in research and
infrastructure.
3. Investment in people
and their skills development.
4.
Leadership from industry and government. We are planning on
providing this leadership when we are a part of Government.
Green agriculture
vision
A richer New Zealand won’t be
achieved by blindly driving ever more tankers of milk around
the country. The Green Party has a vision of New Zealand
with a smart, green economy that protects our environment.
We don’t have an agricultural industry despite
our environment, we have it because of our
environment.
Our Green vision for agriculture has
six key ingredients:
• value
adding,
• innovation,
• environmental protection,
• building skills,
• a genuine brand, and
• working together.
1.
Value adding
Last year New Zealand sent 1.6
million tonnes of milk power to overseas markets. That milk
powder was produced by our environment and was sold on the
back of our brand. But its sale is sending jobs overseas for
other workers to manufacture food products. We should be
identifying those markets ourselves, manufacturing those
products in New Zealand, and selling them proudly branded as
Made in NZ. We need to capture as much of that value chain
as we can for New Zealand.
The New Zealand Forest
and Wood Products Industry have a vision to double their
annual export earnings to $12 billion. They want to do this
not by selling more of their equivalent of milk power, the
raw commodity of logs, but by looking at innovative
wood-based products, manufacturing these products including
new biofuel technologies. They have a vision of being
recognised as a world leader in wood-based building
materials. They want to be selling products of a higher
value than logs of wood.
That’s what the Green
Party means by ‘value added’, passing that added value
on to our manufacturers, our researchers, our exporters, our
workers. Making and selling good, ethical products and ideas
that are more than anonymous milk powder and logs. Really
importantly, adding value in New Zealand means jobs stay in
New Zealand. And that is what New Zealanders want and need.
And we need to diversify. New Zealand’s economy
is more and more being reduced into two main commodities,
milk powder and raw logs. We are very exposed. We know from
the DCD shockwave that relying on dairying only is risky
economics, and equally forestry, where in excess of 90% of
our forest industry is radiata pine, mostly as logs, is a
sitting duck for a pest and disease economic disaster. New
Zealand needs to diversify to fresh, safe, sustainable and
high value products.
2. Innovation
We all
know what green technology looks like in other industries.
It’s manufacturing wind turbines, it’s a second fibre
optic cable to provide secure broadband supply. But what
does innovation and green tech look like for the
agricultural sector?
It’s technology that will
allow us to farm within the ecological limits. Technology
that will generate energy on farms, or from waste. It’s
information communication technology that will allow us to
practice the most precise farming through accurate
application of inputs and monitoring of soil conditions
across large parts of land. The manufacture and intellectual
property of these technologies can also make up a part of
our exports.
We should also be investing into
researching better techniques of farming this island of
ours, such as developing crop varieties and carbon
sequestration techniques.
Research and development
is a public good that should be funded accordingly. It
requires investment as well as researchers and farmers
working together.
Instead this Government is
investing millions into huge levels of irrigation. The 2011
Budget allocated $35 million over five years to support the
development of irrigation infrastructure proposals to the
'investment-ready' prospectus stage. This has the sole goal
of increased dairy intensification, taking us directly to
catastrophic outcomes for our environment. $400 million in
subsidies to irrigation have been identified by the
Government.
In contrast, we have a sustainable
farming fund, which last year gave out $9 million in funds.
$9 million compared to the Primary Growth Partnership’s
$70 million.
And of the sustainable farming fund
projects that are currently in progress, half of a percent
are looking at organics. Half of one percent. As a
proportion of the almost $80 million invested in agriculture
last year that $140,000 doesn’t even register. This is in
spite of the growth of the organic sector.
3.
Environmental bottom lines
When farmers
operate within the limits of their land, environmental
impacts are reduced. When farmers don’t have a bank
breathing down their neck pressuring for ever increasing
outputs they don’t need to push the land beyond its
limits.
We will make sure that farmers can afford
their land, that rural land is valued for its agricultural
potential rather than its potential for tax-free capital
gains.
We will bring in a capital gains tax and
limit the sale of our land to overseas owners so that
farmers can afford to farm it, stay off the treadmill of
debt and stay within the ecological limits of the land.
We will set targets for reducing greenhouse gas
emissions, and chemical use, and increasing organics. And we
will focus on securing support to reach those targets.
We will set and enforce strong national standards
for freshwater, to clean up our rivers.
We will
bring one of our biggest sectors, agriculture, into the
emissions trading scheme so that reducing greenhouse gas
emissions will be incentivised and rewarded.
4.
Building skills
We will support the skills
development of our agricultural workforce to meet the new
challenges. Our schools and universities have a huge part to
play. Massey University’s brand new Institute of
Agriculture and Environment is a perfect example of how the
leaders in primary production can see the importance of
developing an agricultural system that protects New
Zealand’s precious natural resources. Those people working
to produce high quality food and fibre while protecting our
environment need to be highly skilled across the spectrum.
Whether they are handling animals and monitoring their
health and welfare, through to those scientists establishing
the new technologies to monitor nutrient use on our farms.
5. A genuine brand
We will keep a
strong eye on a 100 percent commitment to the 100 percent
pure brand. It’s our ticket to getting higher global
prices that reflect our higher quality products. That means
we need a clean-up of our rivers not a cover-up of the
evidence.
Here in the Hawke’s Bay, a group of
local growers and producers - Pure Hawke’s Bay - has
identified that their markets do not want genetically
engineered foods and are committed to building this
region’s reputation as a food producing region of world
renown, famous for premium, high quality food, produced
sustainably. Pure Hawke’s Bay recognizes the importance of
the brand.
When we are in Government we will
celebrate farmers, here at home and around the world. Urban
people need to understand the challenges of farming, and
that sustainable farming is a joint responsibility for all
New Zealanders to contribute to and reap the benefits of.
6. Working together
The newly
announced Wools of New Zealand farmer owned sales and
marketing initiative, and the red meat sector collaboration
between industry and government are examples of how sectors
can work together to enhance the long-term profitability of
New Zealand’s industries. We want more co-operative
approaches and will work with all agricultural sectors on
how to collaborate.
We can collaborate to protect
the environment too. The Land and Water Forum brought
together 62 stakeholders around the table to develop a
common direction for the management of our freshwater. They
were from across the spectrum and they reached a set of
recommendations through consensus. We didn't necessarily
agree with all of the recommendations and there were
important missing elements. However, those recommendations
that sought to introduce greater environmental protections
were watered down or ignored by the Government. The
Government needs to honour the blood sweat and tears of the
Land and Water forum but instead it is cherry picking
recommendations that suit its own plans, and watering down
the ones that don’t. When we are in Government we will
understand working together for consensus and respect the
process.
Conclusion
Almost
a decade ago the PCE said that we urgently need a vision for
long-term sustainable agriculture. The Green Party has a
vision for Agriculture in New Zealand. One that doesn’t
rely on a polluting industry. One that doesn’t rely on
farmers being stuck on the treadmill of huge debt and ever
increasing production to service that debt. One that
doesn’t rely on milk powder at all costs.
This is
not a new call for action, but it is time for action.
Smart green agriculture is about looking after the
land, the people and the animals because it is the right
thing to do and because it is the economically sensible
thing to do.
It’s about growing our knowledge so
that we can lead the world in how to feed people
sustainably.
It's about getting to know our
customers so that we take our food of provenance from the
field to the table.
Smart green agriculture means
proudly getting our customers to know us, because we have
nothing to hide.
It's about providing our farmers
and food producers a good life and a fair income.
And making sure that New Zealand earns it way in
the world.
That is the Green Party vision for
agriculture in this
country.
ENDS