Northland farmers losing time and money to poor internet
The lack of quality internet coverage in Northland is costing farmers time and money, says Federated Farmers Northland president Colin Hannah.
Farmers must follow directives from their processors on sustainability or risk losing markets for their products, says Waikato Federated Farmers executive Richard Myers.
He says dairy farmers are interlinked with their processors and cannot ignore the sustainability targets they set.
Myers was reacting to comments by Canterbury farmer and former Feds dairy chair Willy Leferink (Dairy News November 28th issue), who believes that farmers should be wary that milk processors don’t take over management of dairy farms under the guise of scope 3 emissions target.
Leferink, who has a sharemilker on his 200ha Canterbury farm and supplies Synlait, says if applied correctly, scope 3 targets might deliver some easy wins, like tidying up particularly those farmers who drag the chain on sustainability.
However, he warns that if reducing emissions intensity on farm becomes a box ticking exercise, then it won’t mean anything. Fonterra recently announced that they plan to reduce their on-farm emissions intensity 30% by 2030. It’s a co-op wide target.
But Myers points out that sustainability isn’t a debate about farmers running their own farms.
“Farmers need to understand why we need to reduce our greenhouse gas emission,” he told Dairy News.
“For Fonterra, dairy farmers have been set a target of 30% reduction of GHG emissions by 2030. Farmers must focus on what their customers ask for, when they buy our products, their specifications.
“They pay us our returns for the products we produce. We want to continue to retain our high value customers like Nestle, Mars, Starbucks, Yum Brands.” Myers says banks are now also asking that farmers address these climate issues.
“We have legal and reporting obligations from Government to go down this track and We want to be leaders in sustainability.
“Dairy farmers are interlinked with their processors which means we must listen to their directives: we must be customer led.”
Myers, a Fonterra supplier, says the co-operative board and management are in complete agreement on Scope 3, so it is over to farmers to act.
“It is going to be harder for some farmers than others, so there needs to be support for them.
“Some of the less efficient farmers may drop out but that doesn’t mean we change the objectives. It is important that our leading farmers set the standards and DairyNZ help the others to learn and adopt best practice.”
While opening the first electrode boiler at its Edendale site, Fonterra has announced a $70 million investment in two further new electrode boilers.
Fonterra says its ongoing legal battle with Australian processor Bega Cheese won’t change its divestment plans.
With an amendment to the Medicines Act proposing human medicines could be approved in 30 days if the product has approval from two recognised overseas jurisdictions, there’s a call for a similar approach where possible to be applied to some animal medicines.
The Government wants to make sure that rural communities get a level of service that people who live in cities often complacently expect.
As the New Zealand Government launches negotiations on a Free Trade Agreement with India, one Canterbury-based vegetable seed breeder is already benefiting from exporting to the world's fifth-largest economy.
Onenui Station on Mahia Peninsula in northern Hawke's Bay is a world first in more ways than one.
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