MEDIA RELEASE

3 November 2008

The Future Of Farming? Checklist For Federated Farmers’ Manifesto

Federated Farmers will launch a manifesto tomorrow morning (Tuesday 4 November) to promote agriculture as the answer New Zealand’s economic well-being. Launching a manifesto during uncertain economic times provides an opportunity to advocate for development and agricultural intensification at the expense of our already threatened environment.

Watch for:

• ‘Reform’ of the Resource Management Act to reduce environmental restraints on agricultural developed.

• Claims that farming can’t be green if it’s in the red (in the real future, farming will have to be green to be in the black).

• Lip service support for environmental sustainability, but as long as there is economic sustainability as the priority.

• Calls for a reduction in DOC’s, regional government and environmental groups ‘interference’ in farming and land development.

• Greater, easier and cheaper access to freshwater resources for agricultural intensification.

• Claims that improving agricultural environmental performance requires more time and more research, and science will ‘eventually’ solve environmental degradation, but no restrictions in the interim.

• Calls for agriculture to receive special treatment on the grounds that it is ‘the backbone of New Zealand’ and deserves a leniency for its adverse environmental effects that is not applied to other industries.

“Federated Farmers suggest that, ‘the future of New Zealand is the future of farming’”, said Bryce Johnson, Chief Executive of Fish & Game New Zealand, “but if farming is to have any future, it must be environmentally sustainable as a bottom line.”

ENDS

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