The latest round of Primary Growth Partnership (PGP) funding has been spread across forestry, merino wool and arable farming organisations.

Agriculture and Forestry Minister David Carter said today $20 million would be split between the New Zealand Forest Owners Association, the Foundation for Arable Research and the New Zealand Merino Company (NZMC) reports The ODT. At slightly over $15m, NZMC will get the lion’s share of the funding, and with their own funding input included, the three government-industry partnerships will be worth over $45m.The government funds will be received over five to seven years and Mr Carter said the economic spin-offs could amount to billions of dollars “if the proposals’ scientific and market research and product development are brought to fruition”.

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The proposed merger between Lincoln University and Telford Rural Polytechnic has moved a step closer to reality. Lincoln University Vice-Chancellor Professor Roger Field says the primary driver for the proposed merger is to protect and develop land-based education and vocational training for the benefit of New Zealand.
 
“Both institutions recognise that an industry-based workforce of highly educated, skilled and technology-literate individuals is required to maintain and grow New Zealand’s global competitiveness in the land-based sectors,” he says.Telford Rural Polytechnic CEO Jonathan Walmisley agrees. “Together, it is possible we have the potential to generate more co-ordinated and integrated land-based education, in keeping with national education strategies and goals.”
 
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Yesterday’s budget brought little good news for farmers and the rest of the agribusiness sector, a senior business consultant says.”Beyond the changes to the tax structure … there is little new for the agribusiness sector which had not already been well flagged by the Government in pre-budget announcements,” said Ian Proudfoot, lead partner in KPMG’s agribusiness arm.

KPMG warned last month that NZ has little as five years before its farmers are undercut by trade rivals reports The ODT.”South America, Western China and Central Asia’s large scale intensive farming practices have the benefit of lower cost land and labour and normally have less complex regulatory regimes,” said the firm’s agribusiness chairman, Ross Buckley.

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Marlborough farmer Doug Avery has a revealing story about commercial greed and the perception that farmers are made of money. Don’t pay what you don’t owe. In his case, it is the way the Government will run the emissions trading scheme reports Stuff. In its efforts to keep administration costs down, the Government is proposing to take farmers’ share of the scheme from the companies that process a farmer’s produce.

In the case of Mr Avery, and all other sheep and beef farmers, it will be based on the weight of meat from their slaughtered animals. He thinks that is unfair. It makes no allowance for the way he, and many others like him, farm, which he maintains emits less greenhouse gases than others and stores more carbon. There is another reason why it is unfair. It punishes innovation. Mr Avery has worked out an innovative way to keep farming on drought-prone land.

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We trained them in the belief they would take up careers as agricultural scientists helping keep the NZ farmer out in front. So, where have they gone? There was a time when we farmers looked to scientists to give us the edge on our overseas competitors and that’s exactly what they did. Research stations such as Invermay led the world in every aspect of farming – from deer, molybdenum to biogas, our scientists were there reports Rural News.

We are talking the late 1970s and the mid-1980s,an era when research results were passed onto farmers with encouragement to try them out. There were farm advisory officers whose mission was to help farmers understand and use the research. Agricultural science leaders such as Dr Jock Allison believed getting research results out to farmers was just as important as the results. To his mind it was crazy leaving them on the shelf.

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Agriculture Minister David Carter yesterday received an earful from Marlborough farmers outraged at agriculture being included in the emissions trading scheme (ETS). The farmers waited for Mr Carter to finish a speech about the scheme at Meadowbank Station in Taylor Pass before unleashing a barrage of questions and statements reports The Marlborough Express. Mr Carter said he did not believe that climate change was “rubbish”. Over the past 20 years there were a “hell of a lot” more emissions of greenhouse gases which produced a “human-induced” effect, he said.

Marlborough farmer Warren Taylor said farmers needed to stop arguing about the science and whether the scheme should go ahead and instead try to use it to their advantage. “We can bitch and moan about it whether it’s getting warm or not; let’s make a buck out of it.” Marlborough Federated Farmers president Geoff Evans said the farming sector would not be able to compete in international markets because of a “perpetually” increasing ETS tax while foreign competitors received subsidies.

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Three of the country’s big farming firms have joined forces to seek government funding for a plan they claim will transform the red meat sector reports Stuff. Silver Fern Farms , PGG Wrightson  and Livestock Improvement Corporation have sought government funding under the Primary Growth Partnership  for a programme that will set up an integrated red-meat supply chain with the three playing key roles. LIC is the herd genetics specialist, SFF the meat processor and marketer and PGGW supplies services to farmers and is a stock buyer.

They said yesterday the Government body considering their application for funding, the Investment Advisory Panel, had confirmed the proposal had advanced to business plan stage. PGGW managing director Tim Miles said he did not want to blow up the story, because the firms were only part-way through the application process, but had decided to put out a statement because rural people were asking about it. It was not a done deal, but a “bloody good idea”, which would not be exclusive to the three firms. Others could join.

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A long, painful dry spell for farmers has helped cut the country’s greenhouse gas emissions. As farmers suffer, the latest official tally from the Ministry for the Environment reveals NZ is doing better than expected in the carbon stakes, partly because farms have had to cull more animals reports The NZ Herald.

Because the national herd is smaller than expected the amount of greenhouse gas the country is expected to make by 2012 has fallen by 1.8 million tonnes. But that is likely to come as little comfort to farmers. Dairy farmers north of Taupo have been cutting milk production earlier than usual, and so far rain has failed to penetrate soils in the most parched regions. In the Waikato, figures from the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry show the drought has cost farmers an average of between $100,000 and $200,000 this year.

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International dairy prices look set to keep rising as drought-affected NZ  joins the list of countries posting reduced milk production reports Stuff. Dairy giant Fonterra is being forced to juggle customer requirements as supply to key Waikato powder manufacturing sites dries up. Fonterra, the world’s biggest dairy exporter, said it was reviewing all supply commitments yet to be formally contracted to ensure it could meet existing supply contracts as central North Island drought impacts on milk flows to its powder and cream manufacturing plants concentrated in the Waikato.

More than half Fonterra’s milk production comes from farms north of Taupo. Northland, which produces about 6 per cent of Fonterra’s milk supply has been an officially declared drought zone for some time, but now production in the central North Island, which includes dairy heartland the Waikato, is this month down 30 per cent on the same time last year, Fonterra said. International dairy prices are already reflecting constrained global supply with Fonterra’s internet milk powder auction this month recording a massive 21 per cent surge in average price per tonne.

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Southern farmers will want to see cash before agreeing to sell their farms to a foreign company again, having been burnt once by a deal that turned sour reports The ODT.  Southland Federated Farmers president and dairy farmer Rod Pemberton said some farmers had previously been burnt when a Maori trust backed by Dubai interests agreed to buy several farms but never paid a deposit.

The deal subsequently fell over, but the experience could harden attitudes. “They will want to see some cash on the table before committing themselves,” he said. A subsidiary of Hong Kong-listed Natural Dairy New Zealand, UBNZ Assets Holdings, has started looking for up to 100 Otago and Southland dairy farms to buy, should the Overseas Investment Office approve its intention to buy the Crafar family’s 29 North Island farms which are in receivership.

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