Editorial: New RMA good for farmers
OPINION: Farmers nationwide will be rubbing their hands with glee at the latest news from the Government about the RMA reforms.
OPINION: The Canadian government's love affair with its lifestyle dairy farmers has got it into trouble once again.
This time the Agriculture Ministers of New Zealand, Australia and the US are being asked by their respective dairy processing organisations to lean heavily on Canada to stop it selling its heavily subsidised dairy products on the world market, a move which is distorting and reducing returns to honest dairy producing countries such as NZ.
This is a significant move and shows Canada that it now has some formidable opponents.
The Canadian dairy industry is small by our standards; its average herd size is in the 80s. But as they say, empty vessels make the most noise and Canadian dairy vessels make the most noise and Canadian dairy farmers have long done that and captured the ear of successive politically fragile governments, to the extent that when the cow bells ring, the government goes head over heels to help.
This sort of behaviour is not limited to Canada. We have seen it in Europe too where farmers hold considerable political power.
However, Canada has always professed to be a free trader and signed up to the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) which requires it to do just that. The problem is that when Canada signed up to the CPTPP they were being blatantly dishonest as it seems they were never going to stop indulging their lifestyle dairy farmers.
In doing this, Canada has gone from being a respected free trader and supporter of rules-based trade to being a born-again rogue protectionist colony - a very unstatesman-like action.
In theory, NZ and Canada should be friends and to be fair on most issues we are and will remain so. But their antiquated return to protectionism continues to sour that relationship.
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.