increase font size
Nathan Guy.
The Labour Party has sent “blank invoices” to farmers around the country, says Primary Industries Minister Nathan Guy.
The invoices don’t have “any details about the price,” he says.
“There is something different about this invoice compared to an invoice a hard working farmer receives after buying feed, a new tractor or repairing his irrigation system.
“The farmers have received the bill but they don’t know how much it will cost them,” he told Dairy News.
Guy says the proposal to charge a royalty for irrigated water on farms is a ludicrous policy.
He is urging farming leaders to meet Labour’s new leader Jacinda Ardern over the next two weeks and seek more detail on the proposal.
“Labour must be upfront with the farming community rather than hiding until after the election.”
Guy says Labour is also proposing large setbacks for riparian planting on farms.
Dairy farmers have already planted 27,000km of fences along waterways, fencing off 97% of them.
Guy says pushing back riparian planting would result in loss of productive land and impose further costs like mechanical cleaning of waterways with diggers, which most farmers do once a year.
“Labour wants all the posts and wires ripped out and pushed back; is it one metre or four metres further out?”
He told Parliament that Labour’s proposed water policy sucks. “It is badly thought out, badly implemented and damages the most productive sector of our economy -- the primary industries.
“Labour has slammed the door shut on the primary sector. Damian O’Connor (Labour’s rural spokesman) got smashed to pieces… he got smashed by a caucus more excited by the urban vote than the rural vote.
The recent East Coast Farming Expo, held over two days at Wairoa, offered an insight into the current state of agriculture on the east of the North Island, at a time when the locals are remembering the second anniversary of Cyclone Gabrielle.
OPINION: At last, a serious effort to better connect farmers and scientists.
An initiative by the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) to connect farmers with scientists is taking off judging by the response at recent regional field days.
New Zealand's red meat sector is looking at exporting more than sheepmeat products to India when a comprehensive free trade agreement is secured between the two countries.
Scientists from the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) are part of an international team working to develop a low-cost diagnostic tool that could significantly improve food crop production in developing countries.
Federated Farmers supports a review of the current genetic technology legislation but insists that a farmer’s right to either choose or reject it must be protected.
New Zealand’s top business leaders are urging the US Administration to review “unjustified and discriminatory tariffs” imposed on Kiwi exporters.
New tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump signal an uncertain future, but New Zealand farmers know how to adapt to changing conditions, says Auriga Martin, chief executive of Farm Focus.
A global trade war beckons, which is bad news for a small open economy like New Zealand, warns Mark Smith ASB senior economist.
Carterton's Awakare Farm has long stood as a place where family, tradition and innovation intersect.
Fonterra says the US continues to be an important market for New Zealand dairy and the co-op.
OPINION: Is it the beginning of the end for Greenpeace?
OPINION: The good times felt across the dairy sector weren't lost at last week's Beef + Lamb NZ annual meeting.
