The Government plans to give water storage and irrigation projects a shot in the arm, and later this year will reduce regulatory “roadblocks” constraining the sector in Canterbury reports The Timaru Herald. “The Government is committed to ensuring that water storage and irrigation projects which meet environmental standards, and which are good economic propositions, can happen in a decent time frame,” Prime Minister John Key said in an outline to the first sitting of Parliament for 2010.

The area of irrigated land in NZ has doubled every decade since the 1960s and irrigation takes up 77 % of all allocated water. Canterbury has nearly 70% of the irrigated land and about 86 % of water used in Canterbury is for irrigation. Water is allocated to farmers under the Resource Management Act, with most paying only for the consent process and monitoring, but the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, Jan Wright, says dairy farmers are not paying enough for their pollution and a price needs to be put on water.

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Prime Minister John Key warned farmers yesterday that they rejected a response to climate change at their peril – endangering their reputations, future incomes and the economy at the hands of powerful global consumers. He gave a hard-hitting speech yesterday in Wellington to the Federated Farmers’ National Council reports The NZ Herald. “Our international reputation with our overseas consumers is at stake,” he said. While the Government had some sway over access to overseas markets, it could not force consumers to buy NZ products if they did not think they measured up to their environmental standards.

“But we can help protect against that possibility. That’s what we believe our emissions trading scheme does and I hope you will see it in that light.” Mr Key cited the recent ban by British supermarket Waitrose on fish that it deemed had been over-fished or harvested by irresponsible means. It had banned New Zealand hoki.The supermarket had not suffered and the move was considered a commercial success.

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Prime Minister John Key has made an announcement that will come as a windfall to rural people desperate for fast broadband reports Scoop. Mr Key has told the Country Channel the government is to spend hundreds of millions of dollars more than originally earmarked for rural broadband. The Prime Minister says broadband is a commercial must for agriculture and the expanded plans will help boost productivity on the land. He says the days of painfully slow dial-up connections for rural customers have to come to an end and the government’s determined to see farmers catch up with urban New Zealand so they can run their businesses much more efficiently.

And in a two-part interview, the Prime Minister has told John Stewart on The Country Channel’s in-depth Newsmakers programme that the government will not stand in the way of any changes to Fonterra’s capital structure. He says he understands that the farmer-owned dairy colossus needs an ownership structure that will enable it to raise equity. But Mr Key says any decision on the ultimate ownership of Fonterra rests with its owners – the vast majority of the country’s dairy farmers.

No farmer has the right to pollute but nor should environmental issues override the economic imperatives, Agriculture Minister David Carter said today. Speaking at the Fed Farmers national conference in Auckland, Carter said the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) as proposed by the previous Labour government would not survive, providing the National-led government could secure sufficient votes in Parliament reports Stuff.”I cannot pre-empt the outcome of the Select Committee’s recommendations, but I predict we will end up with an ETS, but a far more balanced one.  The PM [John Key] has always said that environmental concerns cannot come ahead of the economy,” he said.

Carter said emissions trading legislation would be in alignment with Australia and agriculture will be included in Australia’s scheme. However, he said this was likely to come into effect only by 2015 at the earliest and farmers should not focus on if agriculture was included, but instead on the effect of “grand parenting”. Grand parenting is the allocation of emissions trading units to any particular sector at the initiation of an ETS that allows a sector to adapt over time to the full effects of the ETS.  Under current proposals, agriculture would initially get 90% of its total emissions output and would be removed at the rate of 8% per year.  Carter said this would have a devastating impact on the economy.

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Fonterra said the announcement today of Dairy Export Incentive Program (DEIP) subsidies for US dairy farmers was extremely disappointing at a time when the world dairy market is delicately balanced. “This is bad news for the market and bad news for our farmers in NZ who compete internationally with no support or subsidies of any type,” said Fonterra’s Managing Director of Global Trade, Kelvin Wickham. Mr Wickham said prices had been bouncing along the bottom in recent months and news of US export subsidies would create more uncertainty.

“Restarting of export refunds by the US sends a very negative signal to the market and the global community. DEIP will only have a relatively small effect on US milk prices and US farmer incomes, but it’s extremely disappointing and potentially damaging to the world dairy market,” Mr Wickham said.

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Prime Minister John Key launched the Strategy for NZ Dairy Farming at a function at Parliament on May 5.  The Strategy sets the direction for the dairy industry for the next decade.  It outlines the ways in which the industry will increase the profitability, sustainability and competitiveness of NZ dairy farmers.  Speaking at the launch, the PM said “The dairy sector is an important part of the  economy, and a vital exporter.  But in coming years the sector faces an increasingly complex set of challenges.  It is in the interests of all NZers that the sector works together to address these challenges and I commend the industry for the work it has done to develop a strategic approach to its future.”

DairyNZ Chairman John Luxton said the industry has changed significantly since 2004, when the Strategic Framework for NZ’s Dairy Farming Future was first developed, and this needed to be reflected in an updated strategy. “DairyNZ, as the industry good organisation, has led the development of the Strategy, with key input from the Dairy Companies Assoc of NZ and also Federated Farmers, as well as many other stakeholders. This is the first time key dairy organisations have come together to meet the challenges facing our industry.

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China’s desire for NZ to help sort out its food safety crisis is a commercial risk well worth taking, Prime Minister John Key said today in the NZ Herald. Key met Premier Wen Jiabao overnight with both men toasting the health of the relationship and the desire to build on the one-year-old trade deal between the two countries. It is the first visit by a New Zealand leader since the poisoned milk scandal swept through China. Premier Wen said as far as they were concerned they saw Sanlu as a single isolated incident that was behind us now… In particular he made reference to wanting to work with NZ in the development of food safety standards.’

Despite its involvement, Fonterra’s exports to China have boomed since the poisoned milk scandal because Chinese households were seeking safe food, while Chinese farmers were in crisis because a lack of public confidence in their produce. Key said NZ would work with the Chinese to see if our food safety expertise and technology was exportable.From our point of view we want to play a long term role in the development of the agricultural sector. So if we can become a significant partner with China that gives us a big advantage,’ Mr Key said.

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NZ farmers are global champions at food production and are at the top of the list for economic development,” said PM-Elect, John Key, to Fed Farmers in Wellington reports scoop.

“Mr Key’s speech said farmers are at the core of the new government’s plans to get our economy out of recession. ” said Fed Farmers president, Don Nicolson.“Mr Key’s speech reflected the fact that he has read and digested Fed Farmers manifesto. We look forward to discussing the review of the ETS, reform of the RMA, protection of property rights, infrastructure and animal identification and tracing .” Mr Nicolson said.

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Farmers should find favour with most of National’s promises in its recently released agricultural policy and the party is also confident its push for an emissions trading scheme (ETS) won’t bleed rural support. Agriculture spokesman David Carter and leader John Key were in Hastings late last week to outline the party’s pledges to the rural electorate. (more…)