ANIMAL HEALTH
MACHINERY & PRODUCTS
NEWS
Marathon effort keeping dogs well fed. PAGE 38
Calling on history to make a modern point. PAGE 45
Irish love their farmers – why don’t Kiwis? PAGE 12
TO ALL FARMERS, FOR ALL FARMERS OCTOBER 3, 2017: ISSUE 639
www.ruralnews.co.nz
Time to bridge divide PETER BURKE peterb@ruralnews.co.nz
MEAT INDUSTRY Association (MIA) chair John Loughlin says he is concerned about the “expedient politicking” that went on during the recent election campaign. Loughlin told Rural News his impression of the election campaign was of some parties trying to advance their constituency of urban voters essentially by taking a very hard line on rural issues. This had the effect of driving a wedge between the two sectors, he says. “In some respects it went to extremes during the course of the
election and that is unhelpful to what New Zealand needs. Essentially NZ is a highly urbanised society in terms of its population, but we have massive economic reliance on the rural sector so both sectors have to co-exist intelligently.” Loughlin believes the rural sector has a lot of work to do to correct people’s incorrect perceptions. But he also
Tough going A 24ha plot of potatoes in mid Canterbury been harvested for prominent Ashburton grower Dave Redmond. Crews working harvesters are expected to take two weeks to lift about 1200 tonnes in total. The crop was destined for the AS Wilcox packhouse in Rakaia, which supplies both Countdown and Foodstuffs supermarkets throughout the South Island. Planted around December 20, the crop has wintered in the ground, surviving at least one bout of unexpectedly heavy rain. Meanwhile, farmers and growers throughout NZ are facing one of their worst seasons on record due to the rain that just keeps on falling. – More page 7 and 13.
acknowledges there are issues the rural sector must work on. “NZ has become the only major OECD country where the population has become highly urbanised but still relies very heavily on the rural sector for its export earnings,” he said. “Over time, people from the urban sector have lost understanding about the realities of farming and the realities
of rural life. Also, in farming areas and urban areas there has been degradation of rivers. People in the cities expect to come to the country and find pristine rivers and in some cases they are not up to what they should be.” Loughlin says the rural sector must embark on a big communication exercise, but also change position on some subjects.
THEO CREAMS IT SUDESH KISSUN sudeshk@ruralnews.co.nz
FONTERRA IS defending chief executive Theo Spierings’ hefty $8 million pay packet, saying he hit “far-reaching and demanding targets” set by the board. Fonterra chairman John Wilson agrees that Spierings’ pay, revealed in the co-op’s 2016-17 annual report, is “big numbers”. “We benchmark this remuneration using independent advisors,” Wilson says. “Clearly these numbers are high from a New Zealand perspective and we absolutely respect and understand that; but from an Australasian and global perspective we are still well within the bands of what those global executives earn.” Fonterra’s annual report shows Spierings received a base salary of $2.4m, short-term incentives totalling $1.8m and $3.8m in long term incentives. Wilson says 5600 employees received short term incentives aligned to key operating metrics. A new set of incentives was agreed between the board and senior management on the coop’s transformation project called ‘velocity’. “We had an extraordinary result this year; to give credit to management they were able to hit those targets and the outcome... are what TO PAGE 3
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