agribusiness Agchemical firm launches a new range of biological products. page 25
management Treat farms as a cluster of small units. page 34
RuralNEWS
news Landcorp seeks to make subtle changes to its strategic direction.
page 15
to all farmers, for all farmers
april 22, 2014: Issue 559
www.ruralnews.co.nz
Wool vote to cost $500k pa m ti pa pamelat@ruralnews.co.nz
LAWYERS, BUREAUCRATS and printers will get the bulk of the $500,000 left over from the wool levy of earlier times, as a committee organises a farmer vote on whether to resume a levy on production. So says James Parsons, chairman of Beef + Lamb New Zealand – custodian of the levy leftovers – commenting on the passing of a remit to use the money
for a farmer referendum. The referendum will be run by the group that proposed the remit – the wool levy steering committee. Parsons says BLNZ is holding residual funds of about $500,000 from the former wool levy, which ceased in 2009 in a close grower vote. But all that money will be needed to hold a vote by all wool growers in New Zealand, he says. “It is not a cheap exercise by the time you put together voting docu-
ments, engagement with MPI and a whole lot of legal stuff. “You are operating under the Commodities Levies Act so there’s a whole lot of dotting the ‘i’s and crossing the ‘t’s to make sure that is all done appropriately. “Then there is a process of running a series of meetings, farmer roadshows, collating feedback and working out a final proposal that goes to farmers for voting. Then you need an independent
organisation to run the voting process.” None of that will be run by BLNZ. “It is very much an independent wool group and Beef + Lamb is just custodian of that residual wool levy,” Parsons says. “But it makes sense that, if there’s going to be a referendum on this, farmer’s levies paid in the past on wool would go to fund it.” The referendum is due by the end of the year. – More page 16 @rural_news facebook.com/ruralnews
top dog NEW MPI boss in China, Roger Smith, says he’s passionate about ‘brand New Zealand’. Smith, soon to be regional director Asia and a deputy director-general of MPI, is the highest ranking official from that department to serve in an overseas post. MPI will soon appoint five other staff to Beijing to deal with any issues arising with New Zealand’s number one trading partner. Smith’s appointment follows notable trade problems in China, such as the Fonterra botulism scare and the delay of meat on Chinese wharves. He tells us more about his new role and New Zealand agriculture’s growing presence in China on page 11.
Less milk, more honey p et er bur k e peterb@ruralnews.co.nz
LANDCORP WILL back away from aggressively expanding in dairying, says chief executive Steven Carden. For ten years it has been ‘dairy focused’ and it has 12-14 dairy farms coming on-line during the next three years, mostly long-term lease arrangements with partners with whom they are committed to dairying. “The way the lease is worked is that you apply the farming model best suited to the land and in many cases this is often dairy and you get charged dairying rates. So if you choose not to use it for dairying you still get charged dairying rates.” Like the rest of the primary industry, Landcorp is under constant pressure to convert good finishing drystock land to dairying but the economics are not compelling, Carden says. He is not expecting a regular dairy payout of $8.65. “If the price [achieved] a high six or an early seven next year, I think we’d all be feeling reasonably happy. Like others I sense dairying is reaching the limits of its sustainability – its natural glass ceiling. “It is a volatile species to be farming. As an organisation, and probably as country, we are close to hitting [the glass ceiling] so we are not looking [for] more conversions.” – More page 15
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