The same could be said about Till the Cows Came Home, but everything that occurs in this book recording the creation of Fonterra just happens to be true. There are plenty of larger than life characters, such as former Dairy Board chief executive the late Bernie Knowles giving the dairy industry some very long working hours but also finding time to renovate Wellington rentals, which saw his concrete mixer make a regular appearance in the board’s Lambton Quay, Wellington carpark.
There’s also Bruce Gaffikin travelling to Russia and doing improbable sounding deals with traders there in order to export New Zealand dairy products to a market just starting to open up.
Put that together with all the political twists and turns of late night Beehive meetings and understandings agreed to that are called on under completely different circumstances in the years that follow and it makes a riveting read.
And underpinning all this are the country’s dairy farmers and the single-minded way in which they’ve all played their part in the success which is now Fonterra.
Author Clive Lind draws extensively on the personal recollections of those involved throughout the 400-page book, much more exciting than simply reciting which dairy company merged with which in what year, although that’s squarely there in the background. He carried out 40 extensive interviews during his two and a half years.
Having lived in Southland until 1998 he was fascinated at the impact dairying was having there. Beef and sheep properties were being converted to dairying at a pace. He had written company histories of Southland Frozen Meat, Alliance and Southland Phosphate and was also attracted to the subject through the co-operative basis underpinning the expanding industry. It surprised him that dairy co-operatives came into existence so early and farmers never swayed from this ingrained philosophy despite sometimes having very different ideas on industry structures.
“As a journalist everything you write is a snapshot on the day,” he said of the period he was working on The Southland Times.
But the bigger unmistakable trend was that the economics of sheep and beef farming weren’t there any more and a series of World Trade Organisation decisions pointed to a much brighter future for dairying.
He’s quick to apologise for what he left out which he believes would make separate books on their own, namely science’s part in the formulation of new products and the story behind the breeding and production gains which have accompanied dairying’s rise.
He describes the book, subtitled “Inside the battles that built Fonterra”, as the story of how small companies came together despite farmers feeling fiercely proud of their own provincial entities and the Dairy Board acting as a pseudo government department, charged with the “disposal” of the country’s dairy products.
“They all did a remarkable job,” he said.
“If they had split up everyone would have been fighting against themselves.”
That’s despite the fact that as some companies grew larger through mergers they were very much able to stand on their own feet, but chose not to for the good of the entire industry. And this was despite some farmer shareholders not being convinced they would succeed without the clout of what became Fonterra.
“They thought long term,” Lind said.
He describes some of the people involved as “huge personalities, and I hope I’ve captured that”.
One was Sir James Graham, former Dairy Board chairman, who he said was very much looked up to and respected, along with his successor, Sir Dryden Spring.
“But they needed the challenge of people saying there was a better way. They took different paths to get there but all worked hard towards an outcome,” he said.
Some of the of the most fractious exchanges which occurred in boardrooms as well as outside are dealt with in detail but fortunately some of the passion of the time has eased.
But those who had reservations about Fonterra’s creation still watch it like a hawk.
“I was lucky that the really intense feelings had died down,” Lind said.
Perhaps the most startling reminder of the huge effort it took to form the dairy giant came when he asked about the celebrations that marked Fonterra’s birth.
“There were some but people couldn’t remember them,” he said.
“They were so emotionally exhausted.”
Farmers could be proud of the result and shouldn’t forget how their co-op came about.
“They achieved something remarkable and dairying is now the mainstay of the NZ economy,” he said.
“It took a remarkable maturity. No one was looking for a quick grab.
“It shows the power of sticking together and working collectively when at times the odds were against them.”
• Till the Cows Came Home will be launched in November.
