In the course of the discussion the comment was made by one who had been around for a while that “It’s a pity we still didn’t have the old MAF (Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries) operating, because they would have immediately put a complete restriction on all cattle moving out of Northland, and straight away stopped the spread the disease in its tracks.”
For any reader not aware, theileria first appeared in Northland a few years ago and has since been gradually moving south spread by infected animals.
There is no doubt that effectively quarantining the whole of Northland would have prevented the spread of theileria to the rest of the country, and this would have been relatively easy to do as the Auckland metropolis forms a natural and highly effective barrier.
As one who has spent a considerable portion of his working life being employed by MAF I found this observation particularly poignant. It is certainly not the first time I’ve heard comments deploring the demise of MAF as we knew it, and it is timely to remember there is now a whole generation, and more, in farming, who have no first-hand knowledge or experience of the services and operations provided and carried out by MAF.
The reason I found the comment poignant was that in my days with MAF, accolades were generally a rarity and criticism and denigration abundant. Most of the latter were ill-informed – but I’d have to say that wouldn’t I?
As a government department, it was easy for MAF to become the both the victim and focus of all the prejudices and discontent in the farming community.
For those at the wrong end of its regulatory functions it became an instrument of oppression, for ground-down taxpayers it was a hotbed of wasteful inefficiency and bureaucracy, to the self-appointed hardworking and enterprising breadwinners it was a haven for over-educated, impractical and lazy individuals who couldn’t get, or hold down, a decent job elsewhere. MAF was a very convenient scapegoat for everything real or imagined, that was wrong in farming.
I can give a good example of the “no win” situation MAF frequently found itself in. One of its jobs was to provide a facial eczema warning system. This was a fairly major operation, involving widespread collection of data that included pasture sampling, spore counting and meteorological data. This was followed by analysis and precaution recommendations made. The operation was generally fairly heavily criticised, with this criticism coming from two distinctly different camps. Camp one would say MAF was over-exaggerating the problem to cover their own backsides and cause unnecessary panic, expenditure and work. Camp two would say MAF was falling down on the job, not providing accurate information or not doing enough to ensure that farmers in at-risk areas were taking the necessary precautions. I always used to reckon that if we had the criticism coming in equally from both sides we had it about right.
My career with MAF was within its advisory service and even though it has ceased to exist for a long time now, the effects of its termination are still being felt and will continue to do so into the future.
This is because MAF performed a very important but poorly recognised function in the industry – that of training new entrants. We used to maintain it took at least two years of expensive and extensive training and experience before a new adviser was of any use.
Today very few, if any, consultancy organisations can afford to carry a new consultant for two years while they gain the necessary skills and experience. This means a lack of new consultants coming into the industry and a questionable competence in the few that do. The net result is an increasingly ageing and diminishing number of professional farm consultants.
‘As a government department, it was easy for MAF to become the both the victim and focus of all the prejudices and discontent in the farming community.’
However, the biggest loss of MAF services to the farming industry is its networking. With their day-to-day widespread contacts with grass roots farmers and with industry leaders through statutory functions, MAF had an extremely effective and up-to-date intelligence system that was used extensively and constructively in high-level policy formulation and implementation.
Where this networking became really significant was in the prioritising, implementation, and extension of research work. Advisory and research staff had constant and meaningful contact. Research division had many scientists working in the field and at the research stations. Industry contacts were widespread and meaningful. Importantly, the flow of information from research to the farmer who was to adopt and implement it was seen as vital, so considerable effort went into ensuring this happened.
The close interface with the industry generally, abetted by the regional and district structures, was one of the biggest strengths of the system. The current restructuring plans that will effectively destroy this would be laughable if they were not so tragic.
The other factor that distinguished MAF was all its activities were aimed at the public good. Advisers were constantly reminded that advice must always be in the farmer’s best interest. This was certainly acted on, but sometimes it was difficult to combat a perception that the service existed primarily to sweet-talk unwilling farmers into a course of action dictated by government policy.
Contrast this with today when in-house, commercial considerations seemingly dictate research priorities and research findings are jealously guarded to exploit sales opportunities.
With the advantage of hindsight there is a growing appreciation that the old MAF did in fact provide extremely useful services to both the individual farmers and to the industry generally.
The sad thing is an increasing number of people in farming are pretty much unaware of the activities and benefits provided. Perhaps I should write my memoirs.
In closing, while we are on this nostalgia trip, I will go right back to my high school days when we had English literature drummed into us. I quote the closing lines of Wordsworth’s Ode on the Extinction of the Venetian Republic,
“Men are we, and must grieve, when even the shade
Of that which once was great is pass’d away.”
