Taking a completely different approach to the hands-off one of its National predecessor the Labour-New Zealand First coalition has, in line with election promises, set up the Primary Sector Council and named 15 members to be led by former Zespri boss Lain Jager.
It has a mix of experience, expertise and youth and the reigning young horticulturalist and young farmer of the year titleholders will attend its meetings. It needs the old heads who know what has and hasn’t worked in the past, to bring a sense of history and context to deliberations. But the youngsters will be taking us into the future using technology that changes rapidly.
It will run a two-way process providing advice to the Government on one hand and providing leadership and guidance to the sector on the other. One of its first jobs is to develop a sector-wide vision. Let’s hope that provides a workable definition and some practical, measurable, concrete goals rather than producing grand-sounding but meaningless waffle. It will then work with each part of the sector to construct individual strategic plans.
Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor says the aim is for the primary sector to capture more value from what it produces. Those on the council should remember that. The aim is to produce dollars not nice-sounding, politically correct mumbo jumbo.
That it will produce an overall strategy into which each primary industry can plug itself might be the most important thing New Zealand does on the international market. Having a cohesive, complementary set of stories all with a central theme can only strengthen our sales efforts. Otherwise there’s a danger of different parts of the industry going of half-cocked or wasting money on pitches that don’t fit with our main message.
There’s nothing wrong with doing something completely different. In a fast-changing world it is likely to be essential. Let’s hope the councillors come up with some bold moves. There’s no point in them regurgitating stuff we already know how to do unless, of course, they can tell us how to do it better.
Stephen Bell
