ACT Agriculture spokesperson Mark Cameron is welcoming Federated Farmers’ latest Farm Confidence Survey, which shows farmer confidence has jumped to a 10-year high, but says there is more work to be done – including resolving challenges posed by our climate commitments.

“Finally, we’ve got a Government committed to letting farmers farm, and it’s clear the real change ACT's delivering is resonating with rural New Zealand,” says Mr Cameron.

“We’ve reined in waste and refocused the Reserve Bank on tackling inflation to bring interest rates down. We’ve kept agriculture out of the Emissions Trading Scheme and axed Labour’s anti-farmer policies including the ute tax and new resource management regime.

“The progress is good, but farmers still deserve better. More work is underway to cut rural red tape, such as the replacing the RMA with a system that puts property rights first, so farmers can farm without having to worry about vacuous concepts like the mana and mauri of the water. The work I’m leading on the rural banking inquiry will ascertain exactly why farmers are getting a raw deal and how much woke banking practices have to do with it.

“The Farm Confidence Survey shows climate policy has farmers increasingly on edge. This reflects what rural New Zealand is telling me. The Paris Agreement requires us to sign up to increasing costly targets, prime rural land gets covered in pine trees, and farmers get lumped with new bills and red tape.

“People need to eat, they need their baby formula, and if we shut down efficient Kiwi farms, that production will just be shifted offshore to countries that are less efficient. How’s that good for the environment? It’s a nonsense.

“Rural New Zealand deserves an honest conversation about what these targets mean, how much they’ll cost, and the implications if we were to consider withdrawing. Resolving these questions would do a great deal to lift confidence higher.”

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