Friday, March 29, 2024

Smith keen to work with farmers

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New primary industries director-general Ray Smith is a self-acclaimed passionate Kiwi who wants his fifth generation New Zealand children to experience a bit of the NZ he grew up with. He talked to Annette Scott on a visit to meet farmers in Ashburton.
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Just three weeks into his new job as primary industries director-general Ray Smith was hungry for information and couldn’t get his teeth into his new patch soon enough.

He heard about a meeting being facilitated by Federated Farmers in Ashburton for farmers affected by the cattle disease Mycoplasma bovis and made a call to ask if he could invite himself.

He was keen to front-foot the issue affecting farmers up and down the country, particularly in Canterbury where the disease is most intense.

He faced the music, put a stake in the ground and pledged to work with farmers to rid the country of the disease, meantime making the journey as tolerable as possible for farmers. 

His approach and plausible attitude were welcomed by farmers keen to see some Primary Industries Ministry promises put into action.

“I want to make sure we get things right in this response,” Smith said.

“I acknowledge what I’ve been told to date of the efforts and progress so far and I will work with my team to pick up what needs to be picked up and tweak where necessary.

“I can’t fix it overnight.

“I can’t take the pain away but you can be there to ease the pathway.

“The more you listen the more you reflect about the changes that may be able to be made,” Smith said.

He grew up in Hawera, his father was a stock and station agent and he had family connections in farming.

“My older brother was on a dairy farm for 45 years and I helped on the farm with hay-making in summer holidays and other duties.

“Like a lot of Kiwis of my generation growing up in NZ, they probably had connections to agriculture and I grew up in a big farming community.

“I spent my life around farms so I have strong connections in agriculture,” the 53-year-old former Corrections Department boss said.

Smith oversaw Corrections’ farms including a 4000-cow dairy farm in Waikato and farms in Canterbury and Otago. 

After eight years at Corrections Smith said the primary industries job was the only public sector one he was interested in.

“Some people said to me why would you come to MPI and I said to them as Corrections was coming to an end and eight years as being chief executive there is pretty challenging, the only job I was interested in the public sector was this one (MPI), if it was available, and it was – because I’m a passionate Kiwi.”

He’s also keen to preserve at least a little bit of the life he grew up in for future generations.

“NZ’s changed and changing. If I can bring something to my time in MPI to ensure my children, and they are fifth generation New Zealanders, and their children experience a bit of NZ that I grew up with and support that in my time with MPI then I will be happy.”

He cited farms being more sustainable amid the issues that surround the country around the environment.

“Farmers are the backbone of the NZ economy.

“We need to work on all of these transitions and I want to be playing a role to help support them to make the changes they want to make and we all need to make so that our economy continues to thrive and our kids have a wonderful environment to grow up in as we did.”

While there’s more to MPI than M bovis Smith made it clear his first priority is to get the response right.

“I want to get this M bovis response right. I want to front up to issues and fix them.

“You listen to the stories and they are human stories.

“This is NZ’s largest biosecurity incursion and it’s dealing with something that’s a bit insidious.”

He acknowledged shortcomings in the response over the past 18 months but said the response is improving as MPI’s understanding increases.

“And we will continue to listen to people’s concerns, continue to learn and continue to improve.

“Down the track we have better understanding and that changes the way we manage the response and make changes and there will be more changes.”

Coming into it fresh, from an industry level Smith said there’s belief that NZ can beat the disease.

“All the signals are we will beat this. 

“I know it’s too early to call it but the tests done so far indicate that.

“I know it’s not over yet and I say that with some caution – it’s what we know.”

While acknowledging MPI staff have done an amazing job to date there has been a lot of learning.

“They are human and mistakes have been made along the way but remember we started with nothing.

“We need to keep learning. If we keep learning we will continue to make progress.”

Farmers urged MPI to focus on a three-strand approach – communication, consistency of information and follow through on what is promised.

“I’m picking up we just can’t do that enough.

“The big story is we are going to win this.

“The second big story is we have to look after people along the way.

“Probably people who are entering the system now are entering a better-developed system and you would understand that because we didn’t have a great big response capability when we started.

“People are coming out the other side but we have a distance to travel.”

In the broader MPI there are a number of projects in progress including the billion trees programme, a big change programme in fisheries and biosecurity.

Smith took up the reins of his five-year appointment on November 1, taking over from Martyn Dunne who retired after his five years at the helm.

Before Corrections Smith was the deputy chief executive of the Ministry of Social Development’s Child, Youth and Family agency, which was superseded by Oranga Tamariki.

In August 2017 Smith was appointed as Government health and safety leader by the State Services Commission.

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