Guest column – Andrew Hoggard

Winter of discontent

Federated Farmers president Andrew Hoggard has plenty to say about RMA reform, workforce gaps and – a bright spot – progress on data interoperability.

The phrase “winter of discontent” is a well-known line from Shakespeare’s Richard the Third. It also aptly describes the sentiment amongst a fair number of us in the rural community.

Despite fairly solid market returns for many of our farm products, it feels like the so-called ute tax may well be the straw that breaks the camel’s back for many, thus we have seen protests planned across the country.

The ute tax, I feel, while only a tiny financial burden compared to many other issues, has just highlighted in their minds that the Wellington Beltway thinkers just don’t get regional New Zealand. “Rural-proofing” is a nice phrase to use but not something that actually gets practiced.

The issues I see right now and want to raise are around those bigger picture items and my concern around where it is all heading – and more precisely the pace it is occurring – across the backdrop of the new covid-19 world and the shortage of labour caused by border restrictions.

I am the sort of person who generally just wants to get stuff done, to not bugger around and dilly-dally but just get on with the job.

But I always try to temper that with what resources I have available to do the task, and I also like to work methodically to get one thing done and then move to the next. My mantra being: do a job once, do a job right. The idea of starting something new while you have previous projects incomplete with them metaphorically being held together with baling twine isn’t smart.

If we look across the spectrum of work that is occurring right now, we see a rush of legislation and change. We see legislation that has been poorly thought out and is requiring constant work to fix aspects of it. We have long-standing workstreams that require already stretched resources and we have new proposals coming to the fore, which will stretch those resources even more.

As a stocktake of what is out there, we of course have the NPS on freshwater and the NES with its focuses on winter grazing, stock exclusion and Nitrate limits. We all know the winter grazing rules changes had to be changed within days of their release, due to the impracticability, and we are now in a limbo space with other aspects of the rules and potential changes.

In the past few weeks, we have had the first stage of the replacement of the RMA announced. We see many of the same challenges in this that we saw with the Essential Freshwater package. A one-size-fits-all approach, with rules, new terms and definitions. But we also now have a proposal that new RMA style plans will be done by 14 appointed panels. If this is going to be the case, why didn’t we do the RMA changes first before the Essential Freshwater legislation?

We all agree water quality isn’t where we want it to be, but let’s not forget it’s still amongst the best in the OECD and I have seen a real mindset change in farmers over my time farming. Let’s channel that energy rather than drain it out, rushing down a chaotic path forward.

Another piece of legislation, while only affecting a small number of farmers, is the Crown Pastoral Land Reform Act. We call it “a solution looking for a problem” in our submission, but it is now coming back to the House. We had hoped it might just disappear somewhere in the bowels of Parliament but no such luck. Even though it only affects a small number, it is a truly appalling piece of legislation that sets very bad precedents around property rights.

There’s a glimmer of good news: we have a lot of work happening on stuff that I think farmers will actually be happy to see, with data interoperability, combined with farm plans.

We saw a glimpse of the potential with the presentation from the Trust Alliance at PINZ.

The compliance burden for many of us right now is as annoying as hell, with all the paperwork we have to fill out and this is only going to grow through freshwater rules and climate change. But not only does data interoperability present the opportunity to reduce that, it will also offer the opportunity for aggregated insights that will actually be of use and value to farmers.

This is work we want to be spending more time on. Add connectivity improvements to that and suddenly farmers and growers are likely in a much better space to be able to handle the issues around water, climate and biodiversity.

Overall, my message to the Government is we need to organise the work plan better. We have a siloed haphazard approach right now that is causing stress and anxiety for many. Not just for farmers and growers, but other sectors and, quite frankly, probably the government’s own officials. n

Federated Farmers president Andrew Hoggard says various government legislation is being rushed and poorly thought out.