Former Fonterra executive Guy Roper appointed DCANZ chair
A former Fonterra executive is the new chair of the Dairy Companies Association of New Zealand (DCANZ).
The chair of the organisation which represents all the New Zealand dairy companies has hit out at government politicians for failing to deliver a quality FTA with the EU for the dairy sector.
Malcolm Bailey, Dairy Companies Association of NZ (DCANZ), says the parameters the politicians finally set for the negotiations made it virtually impossible for our highly skilled trade negotiators to pull off a good deal for what he calls one of the big engine rooms of the NZ economy - the dairy industry.
"This is a lousy deal, a significantly missed opportunity and sets an awful precedent for any future trade negotiations," he says.
Bailey, who was in Brussels when the final touches were being put on the deal, says he had a sleepless night when he heard that the message from the Government to the negotiators was 'anything better than the status quo'.
He says DCANZ had urged them to keep on negotiating to get a better deal for dairy and says they were surprised at the approach they took.
He says the change in the language and the fact that NZ had signalled that it wanted a deal by June 30 was something of a cue to the EU negotiators, who knowing NZ's bottom line, appeared to adopt a tactic of stalling the negotiations and counting down the clock to the end of June.
"This appears to have made it extremely difficult for our negotiators to deliver something meaningful for the dairy and beef sectors.
"We don't use this phrase 'walk away' for us it is just continue the negotiation rather than settle a deal at this time if it wasn't going to be good enough and, as we have seen, it is not good enough for dairy. In the end it was a decisions made by the Government and I have already said how disappointed we are," he says.
Bailey says he's not at all critical of the MFAT trade negotiators, describing them as "top shelf people".
He says while DCANZ was not at the actual negotiating table, they worked alongside the MFAT people and provided analysis and information to assist them where necessary.
Minimal Result
Malcolm Bailey says, right from the start of the negotiations four years ago, it was clear that NZ was not going to get everything it wanted.
He says it then came down to what was really needed, which was tariff elimination - something we got in the UK FTA. He says, when this didn't look possible, the language used was 'achieving commercially meaningful outcomes' for the dairy and beef sectors.
"So what's the definition of that? Well, there is threshold of 5% open access to their market and 5% of 450 million people is reasonably significant, so that's the default if you like. But we have ended up miles below that," he says.
Bailey points to the fact that NZ gave up using the name Feta and says if you look at the gain the FTA for dairy, the result is minimal and not what we needed.
He says he also challenges claims by the Government on the financial benefits for dairy in the FTA as it stands. He says he strongly disagrees with financial gains the Government claims the industry will get as a result of this FTA. He says DCANZ has a completely different take on these.
What has surprised Bailey is a belief that the EU actually wanted to deal with NZ. He says issues such as NZ's support for Europe over the Ukraine war was a positive.
"The other thing was it was almost embarrassing for the EU not having a FTA with NZ when we are down to the last six in the world, sitting in a group that includes North Korea.
"So there was definitely a willingness and, as we have already noted, some sectors such as kiwifruit and horticultural crops have done well and I am pleased for them," he says.
Managing director of Woolover Ltd, David Brown, has put a lot of effort into verifying what seems intuitive, that keeping newborn stock's core temperature stable pays dividends by helping them realise their full genetic potential.
Within the next 10 years, New Zealand agriculture will need to manage its largest-ever intergenerational transfer of wealth, conservatively valued at $150 billion in farming assets.
Boutique Waikato cheese producer Meyer Cheese is investing in a new $3.5 million facility, designed to boost capacity and enhance the company's sustainability credentials.
OPINION: The Government's decision to rule out changes to Fringe Benefit Tax (FBT) that would cost every farmer thousands of dollars annually, is sensible.
Compensation assistance for farmers impacted by Mycoplama bovis is being wound up.
Selecting the reverse gear quicker than a lovestruck boyfriend who has met the in-laws for the first time, the Coalition Government has confirmed that the proposal to amend Fringe Benefit Tax (FBT) charged against farm utes has been canned.
OPINION: Years of floods and low food prices have driven a dairy farm in England's northeast to stop milking its…
OPINION: An animal activist organisation is calling for an investigation into the use of dairy cows in sexuallly explicit content…