There’s no doubt that the industry-good body has become much more focused over recent years, narrowing down the areas where it’s involved and making sure that it communicates well with both its funding farmers and the wider agricultural industry where it has formed some strong alliances, particularly in the research area.
It’s gone into battle on behalf of dairying, making sure local body restrictions on the industry are as workable as possible or protesting at the highest level where they aren’t.
Former chairman John Luxton had the huge advantage of also being a former Minister of Agriculture so he could easily tap into different networks at the highest level and get the dairying message across both here and overseas.
Spaans isn’t light on connections either, as a sitting Fonterra director who has been on the DairyNZ board for seven years. In the February issue of DairyNZ’s Inside Dairy, he praised the former chairman’s legacy, saying that maintaining strong relationships across the dairy industry and entire primary sector was his immediate priority.
But looking at the six challenges he then ran through only one, farming within environmental limits, concerned those two groups. The rest, ranging from attracting suitable people to the industry, through market volatility to consumer expectations to greenhouse gases, all stretch much wider.
Spaans says a strong story is needed for customers because they will judge the industry on actions, not words. But isn’t that oh-so- true for the rest of New Zealand, even if they are dairy-free?
So how does DairyNZ intend to get its message across to them?
Spaans was quite clear here when spoken to towards the end of last month. This was very much part of DairyNZ’s role but the challenge was how to best go about doing it, he said.
“There’s nothing more powerful than using farmers themselves to show how their improvements to the environment benefit the general community.”
And their increasing use of social media was well displayed when they took to it late last year to defend themselves when controversy erupted over treatment of bobby calves.
“That really turned the tide for us,” he said.
DairyNZ would continue to support farmers taking these sorts of actions rather than getting directly involved itself as there were bound to be other organisations with agendas trying to target the dairy industry. This was most likely to happen again in the animal welfare area, despite constant improvement in onfarm practices.
Attracting young people to careers in the industry might be a tougher nut to crack, particularly at a time when the reality onfarm with continuing low payout forecasts means fewer jobs being available and earnings from them not likely to lift. Spaans points to work which DairyNZ can continue doing in championing health and safety improvements onfarm along with supporting industry training through Primary ITO courses. But he rules out any repeat of television advertisements such as the Go Dairy campaign which highlighted career changers’ advance through the industry and encouraged many more to follow them.
Communication was an area that was evolving with a move towards more subtle messaging, he said. DairyNZ’s website was revamped last year resulting in substantial growth in the number of visitors, and farmers would see more fulsome information on campaigns and events included in print publications they received. The fundamentals would remain the same but there would be some repackaging in order to counter any farmer disengagement, often seen in tough times.
Spaans used the word crisis then said it was too strong a term.
“But it could take some time before prices lift,” he said.
“So now is the time to have a fresh look at farm systems and make hard decisions in order to remain profitable.”
DairyNZ most definitely would be continuing with its recent messaging that pasture-based farming gave the most resilience. Strengthening and repackaging that information would aim to get farmers to think carefully about their choice of farm system.
While there might not be a great deal of awareness in urban areas yet, those in the country and particularly those servicing farmers know only too well how low returns have seen them take a more traditional approach. Supplement use has been able to be trimmed back markedly because of favourable spring and summer seasons in many areas. Costs have been cut wherever possible, which has often meant planning for new infrastructure has been postponed or cancelled altogether.
The dairy industry just through these moves is presenting consumers with a more appealing image than the previous intensification-or-bust approach.
If this is the silver lining of the present downturn why not grab it and use it to every advantage?
