Milk production will fall by 24% and tax revenue will halve to about $500 million. That’s a lot of cash missing from the economy in a country that has built its prosperity on the back of the land.
Of course, with the Zero Carbon Bill there’s even more pain for farmers – it sends another $1b a year down the drain, according to the research document. It’s a challenging and scary time for farmers. The Government is responding to global market signals and is moving quickly to legislate improvements to our food production systems.
Things are moving very quickly and farmers are feeling left behind with short consultation periods at the busiest time of the year certainly not helping. But farmers are adaptable and it can be argued the certainty that will come out of these new regulations will be the foundation to build more sustainable and resilient businesses. It’s worth remembering that while the DairyNZ research includes a lot to be worried about it predicts a future that will not happen. Farmers won’t simply destock and leave it at that. Like every farmer to come before them they’ll look at the market and find new ways to produce food. It’s what all those farmers did 20 years ago when the dairy boom began.
There are gains for them and the rest of New Zealand from having cleaner water, that can be proven so, as well. It’ll help bank that premium for our food that the industry has been talking about for years. For some time it seems as though farming leaders and others in the sector have been fighting for the past. They say the way they’ve been doing things till now has been good enough. It’s not. The best in farming are always looking to the future and devising the next step on the journey. The world is waking up to how its food is produced and the consumers we want to engage want it done better.
Let’s fight for our future.
Bryan Gibson
