Hill country farmers are changing their attitudes to their erosion-prone country, says Agriculture and Forestry Minister David Carter. He was flown in a helicopter by Horizons Regional Council to check out flood protection in the lowland area and hill country. Mr Carter went to stopbanks on the lower Manawatu, Moutoa floodgates, Kopane Bridge and Pohangina and Turakina Valley hill country.

He said two hill country farmers he spoke to said there seemed to be a greater awareness of the erosion problem coming from the hills reports The Manawatu Standard. The sustainable land use initiative (SLUI) programme was developed around voluntary whole-farm plans which assess the farms’ physical, environmental and business resources in a structured way. They are funded by Horizons in partnership with the Government on a dollar-for-dollar deal, through MAF’s hill country erosion fund.

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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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NZ  farmers will have less to sell than usual this autumn as several regions slide into drought, creating a “weak tail” to the main primary production season, says a leading rural bank. “Seasonal conditions have pulled the end of the season forward for North Island suppliers, as soils dried out in March,” Rabobank says in its Agribusiness report.

“South Island producers have continued to fare better, with drier East Coast conditions offset by the availability of irrigation water, and favourable conditions.” The north and east of the North Island, and parts of Canterbury and Otago were extremely dry in March, with Auckland experiencing a record low rainfall for the month. It was also dry over the remainder of the North Island and Nelson, but Fiordland and parts of Southland received around 120 percent of their normal rainfall.

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Dairy industry leaders have put farmers on notice to lift their game after a damning report showed many have substandard effluent management systems. Fonterra announced yesterday that from next season it will visit every supplier’s farm each year to inspect dairy-effluent systems. The company has demanded higher compliance with the regulations, with threatening fines and the refusal to collect milk from repeat offenders reports The ODT.

The latest Clean Streams Accord data, gathered by regional councils, shows the number of farmers around New Zealand adhering to council dairy-effluent discharge consents has slipped from 64% in 2007-08 to 60% in 2008-09. “That’s a level that whilst we do not like it, you have got to say it’s not a bad level. It’s one of the best in the country.”

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Murray Horn, former Treasury secretary and head of ANZ Banking Group’s New Zealand arm, has been tapped to help lure warring factions of the wool sector out of their trenches to create a new industry good bodyreports Scoop. Horn will act as an independent convenor and will call a meeting of wool sector organisations to begin the process of forming a single voice for the industry, said Agriculture Minister David Carter.

Horn’s appointment stems from the work of the Wool Taskforce, which Carter convened last year in the wake of the grower vote to dump Meat & Wool New Zealand’s wool levy. The group reconvened last month to consider the Wool taskforce report: Restoring Profitability to the Strong Wool Sector, which recommended a marketing strategy focusing on wool’s heritage and green credentials.

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The Government may look at opening some conservation land to livestock grazing as a way for the Department of Conservation to generate income reports The ODT. Agri Minister David Carter told about 300 farmers in Central Otago last week that finding ways to generate income from a conservation estate that grew in size under the previous government was a looming issue, and allowing strictly controlled grazing to licensed farmers could be a solution.

“That, to me, makes perfect sense,” he said at the Fed Farmers high country committee two-yearly field day in the Nevis Valley last Wednesday. Don Clarke, of Carrick Station, told the field day that he had found grazing of the upright-growing invasive weed, Hieracium lepidulum, could control its spread. Mr Carter repeated his support for the greater use of conservation covenants administered through organisations such as the QEII Trust, saying it was “a sensible” way to achieve biodiversity protection and allow economic use of land.

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I admit to being sceptical about the latest efforts to find a way to dig wool prices from the trough they have fallen into over the past 40 years.After being studied by committees, consultants, a network and a task force, the NZ industry is still floundering. Now, the problem is to be put into the hands of one person, a sort of “wool czar”. He has my deepest sympathies.

The appointment, yet to be made, follows the release of a report by a task force set up by Agriculture Minister David Carter reports The Dom Post. It concluded that the industry’s large number of interest groups did not share a “co-ordinated, overarching vision or strategy” and recommended establishing a marketing group that could leverage government funds for “partnerships in market-led wool research and innovation projects”.

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Agriculture Minister David Carter was challenged to provide leadership in the divided meat and wool industry at a meeting of 100 farmers in Tapawera yesterday reports The Nelson Mail. Mr Carter told the farmers they too had to step up and make their voices heard, and he hinted that consolidation was in line for the fragmented wool industry.

Tui sheep and beef farmers Don and Kaye Register organised the meeting at the Tapawera Hotel because of frustration at low wool and meat returns. Mr Carter said to see so many turn up showed how stressed many sheep and beef farmers were, and that was the case around the country. However, he believed they were on the cusp of the most exciting time for food producers because of the increasing global food demand, and New Zealand’s ability to satisfy consumer demand for food security.

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A dairy industry in which several small companies develop niche markets for specialised milk products, such as “functional” foods with claimed health benefits, is envisaged by Agriculture Minister David Carter. In his first extended interview in 2010, Mr Carter canvassed a range of issues in his portfolio. One was his “helicopter view” of the dairy industry reports Stuff.

He said he expected the Dairy Industry Restructuring Act, which set conditions on milk supply and competition when Fonterra was formed in 2001, to be extended when the next “trigger point” came up next year. A ministry discussion document was circulated in the industry late last year and Fonterra’s initial response was that it was not opposed to the act’s extension.

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Frustrated sheep farmers Don and Kaye Register have organised a public meeting in Tapawera which Minister of Agriculture David Carter will attend on February 3. Don Register and his wife, Kaye sweated away dagging and cleaning up their sheep on their farm, Homebush, at Tui near Tapawera. Then the sheep were shorn but when the wool cheque came, Don got a bit angry reports Stuff.

“I thought, `Oh, hell, it’s hardly paid for the shearer’,” he says. He was still steaming when a note came in the mail saying their MP, Chris Auchinvole, would be at the Motueka A&P Show. “I said, `We’ll go to the show as well and catch up with him’, and I told him exactly what I thought and I wanted him to take a message to David Carter.

“So he said straight away, `Why don’t I bring David Carter to see you?”‘ That’s what he will do on February 3 at the Tapawera Hotel, where the Registers have organised a public meeting for farmers to put their views and hear from the minister. The message to the minister will be blunt. “We ain’t happy with the situation for meat and wool,” says Don. “It’s shocking.”

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