Federated Farmers High Country
Committee Report to Conference - May 2015
Down on the farm it’s been an old fashioned summer in some ways, but finally moisture
arrived albeit a bit late but now with good soil temperatures, we are hoping that we can
still get some growth before it gets too cold.
The store lamb sales have held up well and beef is still strong. It is disappointing that
this late in the season the schedule is slipping. The slide in dairy prices looks as though
it is going to be bigger than anticipated and this will reverberate around the country as
already seen in the latest trade budget deficit - the unknown factor is how long before it
corrects its self to some degree.
High Country farmers, along with all others, are still embroiled in environmental
processes with consents and nitrogen allocations taking a lot of time and resources.
We have to be very careful here to look at the bigger picture and I firmly believe that
nitrogen allocations must be attached to the land otherwise we are picking and choosing
the value of land around us and stifling further development.
There is a lot of science being done by farmers and the regional councils to improve the
science of what is happening around us. Most importantly it should be noted that it is
the people who live on the land - those who will be most affected by policies and rules who are leading the way in trying to reach an effective yet practical solution.
There are a lot of decisions being made concerning peoples’ livelihoods by people who
although they have the right intentions don't necessarily have the understanding of the
wider picture. I only hope they take note of our conference theme, accept that they
alone do not have all the right answers, and work together with the landholders to
achieve long-lasting satisfactory outcomes.
If they refuse to work with other stakeholders then I believe that they should be held
accountable for those decisions just as landowners are.
Committee-wise we have continued working on several pest management fronts and
over the past twelve months we have seen some significant developments in both rabbit
and wilding conifer control.
High Country remains an active partner in the Rabbit Co-ordination Group and the NZ
Wilding Conifer Management Group and we will hear at this conference of the success
of the High Country sponsored refinement research in rabbit control and the production
of a national strategy for wilding control.
I mentioned earlier about our being embroiled in environmental processes with consents
and nitrogen allocations and we were able to see some of the work being undertaken in
Otago on a field visit during our March Committee meeting in Wanaka. If there was one
thing that this visit demonstrated it was the complexity of the situation: different
landholders are affected in different ways, and these variations need to be
acknowledged by the Regional Councils that make the rules. To ignore this variation is
foolhardy (at best).
The work that Kim Reilly and her Federated Farmers policy team is doing in negotiating
this minefield is invaluable.
Federated Farmers is currently in the process of publicising the outcome of its “Strategic
Refresh”. This may well result re-prioritising some of its activities and, while not on such
a widespread scale as Federated Farmers, the committee believes that the time is ripe
for High Country to go through a similar exercise.
A declining meeting culture, including reducing numbers at High Country Conferences,
indicates that we need to look at the way we are getting information to and from our
High Country members.
In line with this, we have changed the format of High Country conference – cutting down
on the amount of business and adding in a short field trip in the hope of making it more
attractive. We have also allocated some specific portfolios to committee members and
are seeking member feedback as to where the committee should be directing most of its
energies.
Maybe it’s also time to look at the structure of the committee. We are currently working
on something that was set up in 1947!
Simon Williamson
(Vice Chairman Federated Farmers High Country)