Opinion

Go hard, go early

Alternative View

Alan Emerson

LET me start by saying that I don’t like lockdowns. People have also suggested, hurtfully in my submission, that they make me grumpy. In one case it was “more grumpy than normal”. Let me add that in the current case, I totally support going into lockdown for the entire country.

We were holidaying in Australia when the borders shut and took advantage of the week-long amnesty to come home. Watching the Australians attempt to control covid and comparing it with ours was a little like chalk and cheese.

For a start, in New Zealand we know exactly what’s going on and why. We have the Prime Minister and Covid-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins, along with the Director-General of Health, giving us the news and then taking questions from journalists.

In Australia it wasn’t as precise.

When the Delta variant of covid hit Sydney it didn’t seem to create many waves. It was believed to be started by a limo driver carrying foreign air crew. The driver wasn’t vaccinated and didn’t wear a mask.

Since then, it has spread far and wide.

New South Wales (NSW) didn’t go into immediate lockdown because they had a “gold standard” contact tracing app. They then went into selective lockdown before locking down the state when the daily total reached 100. Conversely, Victoria went quickly into lockdown and has less infections than its neighbouring state. Queensland, where we were, closed its borders quickly and had just a few cases. At the time of writing, there were no new cases in Queensland compared with NSW who had a massive 633 cases and three deaths.

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian says “we haven’t seen the worst of it”.

Watching the TV news was interesting.

Despite the lockdown, the Sydney beaches were packed. People were there despite attempts to move them on.

Then, when the state did go into lockdown there was a huge and unruly riot. The NSW police said if there was another similar riot they couldn’t control it. The state government called in the army to assist and they were certainly visible on the streets.

By comparison, in NZ we had 100 protesters in Auckland led by conspiracy theorist and political wannabe Billy Te Kahika.

The spread of covid to Victoria has been well-documented. A removal company whose employees weren’t wearing masks moved a Melbourne resident back home. They infected the family.

One of the family members went to the Melbourne Cricket Ground to watch a football game and spread it around the crowd. What was sobering was seeing a map of the spread. People several rows and many seats from the infected person caught the virus. It spreads that easily.

The main issue for me, certainly in NSW, was that people didn’t take warnings seriously. Despite the lockdowns you could see people in the streets. Others were playing on the beaches. Everybody was blaming someone else, with immigrants getting a real hammering.

On one side of the argument you could read that many immigrants didn’t understand English and that communicating by press conference didn’t work. On the other side it was “ignorant immigrants”.

My prediction is that the Delta variant of covid has a long and happy life in Australia unless there is dramatic change. It made me glad I was a Kiwi comfortably ensconced in rural Wairarapa.

The differences between the two countries over the handling of covid has been considerable. For a start, in Australia you have federal and state governments. It often appeared to me that politics between the states and the federation were all-consuming and that controlling covid was secondary.

The federal government was responsible for vaccinations and that effort was roundly criticised.

In NZ we had National leader Judith Collins, to her credit, agreeing with the lockdown. I couldn’t imagine that happening in Australia.

Here we’ve largely played the game over lockdowns. The normally busy road outside our place is dead. In Australia it seemed by the television coverage I saw that the rules were made to be broken.

Locally we went hard and fast. In NSW it was anything but.

International reaction to our lockdown has been interesting, with the Washington Post incredulous that we would go into lockdown with just one covid case. CNN echoed the Post’s sentiments, as did many other media outlets.

Just one case can quickly grow, as we’ve found out.

I was pleased with the local reaction to the lockdown. The first email I received was from the RSA promising support if I needed it and giving me the necessary contacts. That was followed by Federated Farmers and Rural Women.

So I’m pleased I’m in NZ where we play the game and not politics over covid. Hopefully, that will also mean the NPC can resume sooner rather than later.

CHEESE AND CHALK: Alan Emerson says the differences between how New Zealand and Australia is handling of covid makes him proud to be a Kiwi.

Your View

Alan Emerson is a semi-retired Wairarapa farmer and businessman: dath.emerson@gmail.com

Bad but definitely not the worst

From the Ridge

Steve Wyn-Harris

I DON’T know about you, but personally I think we need something self-affirming, something uplifting, something positive this week.

Most of us knew that it was just a matter of time before the Delta variant managed to weasel itself across the border and get into us.

A population that has been so well-protected that we have no acquired immunity, just a million having had both shots of the vaccine and 1.5m of us having had one shot, means that the rapid health response at the time of writing may still not be enough to shut this incursion down. Then we’ve got something decent to be concerned about and for good reason as we look towards Sydney and Suva.

Level 4 lockdown has little effect on busy farmers, but much of the rest of the country is seriously impacted.

Hold on Steve, we thought you were writing about something positive.

Yes, yes but I’m just setting the scene. Bear with me.

Then there is the weather and climate. Some of you have had devastating floods. It seems churlish to mention, here we are still dealing with a second cumulative drought. My annual rainfall here in Central Hawke’s Bay is around half of what I should have had by now and this towards the end of August. The usual windy, dry months of spring are ahead but of course, nowadays, anything could happen.

It was so dry underfoot that I had a fertiliser truck driving around on my heavy Hatuma clay soils in July, spinning a bit of nitrogen on to build some feed covers for lambing. That truck could have gone through any gully that usually would have running water in it at this time of the year.

I pump from spring-fed creeks so am fortunate, but have mates out towards the coast who are struggling to keep water up to their cows. In August for goodness sake.

There’s the pace and scale of legislative change weighing heavily on our minds.

Don’t forget the impact on our sheep and beef sector of the rapid increase in the carbon market that Keith Woodford’s excellent series is highlighting.

Gee thanks Steve, I feel really uplifted now.

Well, we get to my point now.

It could be a heck of a lot worse and our worries are trivial to those experienced by others.

Look at the poor beggars in Afghanistan, for example.

Because it sits at the crossroads of Central and South Asia, it has had a hell of a history of foreign invasions and wars.

Its mountainous and tough terrain is considered unconquerable and is nicknamed ‘the graveyard of empires’. The three most recent of these being the British Empire, the Soviet Union and now America.

The country has high levels of terrorism, poverty, child malnutrition and corruption.

And now we have seen the Taliban rapidly retake control of the country after the US forces and their allies left after 20 years’ involvement.

The Taliban are talking a conciliatory game but they have been brutal and cruel in the past and it’s no wonder so many Afghans would rather be anywhere but in their own country.

Then there is poor, benighted Haiti. Eleven years ago, an earthquake there killed up to 300,000 people, although no one is sure of that terrible toll.

One of the poorest nations on the planet, their corrupt president has recently been assassinated, another devastating earthquake has just killed thousands, injured many more and made tens of thousands homeless. Then a tropical storm followed up to add to the misery and suffering.

The majority reading this have their own homes, guaranteed jobs, decent balance sheets and have been getting good returns for our produce for several years with near record prices forecast for the season ahead.

Yes, it’s tough out there but we also have much to be grateful for.

TAKING STOCK: Steve Wyn-Harris says while it’s human nature to count all the things that are going wrong in NZ, one should take a moment to appreciate the fact that it could be a lot worse.

NZFAP vital to future farming

Meaty Matters

Allan Barber

THE New Zealand Farm Assurance Programme (NZFAP) had its origins as an integral function of the Red Meat Profit Partnership (RMPP), which was established in 2014 under a joint funding model between the Government under the Primary Growth Partnership and nine industry partners, including B+LNZ, six meat processors and two banks. The meat companies decided to abandon their own assurance schemes and pursue a standardised approach, although Alliance was initially reluctant.

Seven years down the track, RMPP ended its activities in March, as was always the intention, after developing its programmes to the point where they have reached maturity and, in the case of NZFAP, ownership has been transferred to an incorporated society representing the original stakeholders.

Other important developments include the transfer of the farmer Action Group model to B+LNZ who will provide a support payment of $2000 per group until September 2022; Affco and Wilson Hellaby’s decision to roll their suppliers onto NZFAP when they next come up for audit; 22 wool companies joining NZFAP; and the launch of NZFAP Plus on October 1.

The success of the programme to date is shown by the fact 8000 farmers have already committed to NZFAP, which has a series of modules recording farm performance across the dimensions of environment and sustainability, origin, traceability and farm inputs, security and food safety, animal health and welfare, and farm to processor movements. NZFAP Plus will see the addition of three further aspects to the programme covering farm and natural resources, people and biosecurity, although farmers will not, at least initially, be obliged to commit to these for their audits.

However, industry climate change commitments to the Government under He Waka Eke Noa, as well as regulatory changes emanating from Three Waters Reform and Carbon Zero by 2050, suggest the full suite of performance measurements contained in both farm assurance programmes will soon become the minimum requirement. The parallel probability is there will be a growing number of influential consumers, pressured by large corporate retailers and consumer goods marketers, who will demand to be assured their food comes with a host of guarantees as to their methods of production and distribution.

The challenge for industry representative organisations like B+LNZ is to keep ahead of the regulators, ensuring enough progress is being made voluntarily to minimise the level of regulation. Unfortunately, the dire predictions of the planet’s destruction will heighten the level of noise directed at the politicians, which will make it increasingly difficult to maintain farming’s freedom to operate.

While the threat of regulation will be driven domestically in the first instance, international trading partners may also start to apply non-tariff barriers which will hold NZ to account for its methods of production, however environmentally-friendly they are. Because our food trade is so heavily weighted towards exports and, on a global scale, we are a very small trading partner, NZ can be bullied, but has very limited capacity to exert any influence in response.

When it comes to consumer trends, the important thing is to ensure we do not overreact to every new fad. Given the fact we had hardly heard of regenerative agriculture a year ago, the temptation might be to think it is just a fad, rather than a distinct trend which will become permanent. Silver Fern Farms (SFF) has conducted research in the US, the UK, Europe and China, which has identified six key consumer concerns: soil health; emissions management; farming intensity; biodiversity; water use; and food system sustainability – although a cynic might suggest either the research used leading questions or the sample groups came from a very narrow segment of society. It is a stretch to believe these concerns are top of mind for the average consumer on a tight budget with a family to house and feed.

B+LNZ’s Nick Beeby agrees regenerative agriculture is a concept which is being driven by big brands, for their own purposes, but it appears to have enough momentum to become an important trend. There is as yet no universally accepted definition of the standards and criteria to be met, therefore NZ has the opportunity to establish an acceptable definition, as opposed to being stuck with whatever the big brands decide it should be.

Another perspective on farming regeneratively comes from those farmers who have decided they wish to farm using less inputs, because of the improved ecosystems and greater diversity on their land, combined with improved mental health from farming less intensively. The most impressive book I have read this year is English Pastoral by Lake District farmer James Rebanks, whose family has worked the same land for six hundred years. He reaches the conclusion that the way his father and grandfather have farmed the land no longer works economically and must change for the family farm to survive for future generations. Without ever lecturing his reader, he eloquently tells the story of his progress towards less intensive, more sustainable farming and the benefits gained.

If NZ farmers can be helped to farm sustainably following some key principles, which could be termed traditional or regenerative without removing their ability to make an acceptable living, global consumers will be willing and eager to buy our food. The farm assurance programme and its extension into NZFAP Plus will become an essential tool enabling all farmers to justify their licence to operate in an increasingly critical world. There is little alternative, if we wish to continue earning our livelihood as a major exporting nation.

OPPORTUNITY: Allan Barber says because there is as yet no universally accepted definition of regen ag standards, NZ has the opportunity to establish an acceptable definition, as opposed to being stuck with whatever the big brands decide it should be.

Another perspective on farming regeneratively comes from those farmers who have decided they wish to farm using less inputs, because of the improved ecosystems and greater diversity on their land, combined with improved mental health from farming less intensively.

Your View

Allan Barber is a meat industry commentator: allan@barberstrategic. co.nz, http://allanbarber.wordpress. com

RICK ALEXANDER

for the RAVENSDOWN BOARD

I will bring a life time of practical farming experience to the Ravensdown Board. Multiple years of governance experience running a large commercial multi-site healthcare organisation strongly supports my candidacy. Hard working, genuine and honest, I care deeply about the success of New Zealand’s agriculture sector. For many years I have benefited from sound management at Ravensdown and wish to contribute to the future success of the co-operative. Nominator: Chris Grace Seconder: Hugh Donald Area: 5