increase font size
Make your vote count towards candidates who understand the rural community.
When you exercise your vote in the local body elections in October, make it count towards candidates who understand the rural community.
It is important that farmers get out and vote for candidates who can better represent them. If we don’t it makes the job of Federated Farmers much harder.
The sad truth is the farming community is stuck with an old system of capital-based rateing versus the central government’s existing tax on earnings.
Comparable to other residents, farmers pay a lot of money to fund community services. It feels like we’re the ATM machines that keep councils’ lights on.
As Federated Farmers has argued for many years, land and capital value rates tend to allocate a larger portion of costs for council activities and services to owners of high-value properties.
High country farmers, for example, may own thousands of hectares, which leads to a higher valuation.
However, profitability is lower due to current commodity prices. Competition amongst buyers drives prices up, including overseas buyers after their next prestige asset.
People may be against overseas ownership, but by voting for a council which increases rates or forces excessive conditions upon on these farmers, their cashflows are eroded, making the properties unaffordable to own.
With all of this in mind I’ve put together tips for farmers and common sense advice for potential candidates.
Top tips for voters:
- Understand why your preferred candidate is standing and what they stand for; one-issue activists don’t make great team players.
- Even though some legislation is regulated at central government level, regional councillors have an important role to play in influencing the development and implementation of regional plans.
- Councillors have the freedom to advocate for innovative approaches to maintaining or improving the local community.
- Councillors should accept and recognise that farmers pay more than their fair share of rates.
Top tips for prospective councillors:
- Challenge your council to undertake a rating review with targeted rates and uniform charges.
- Implement hard caps on annual rates increases and focus on reducing and prioritising spending.
- Two-way informed communication is the key to meeting community expectations.
- Where changes in farming practises are required, give farmers realistic compliance timeframes.
- Improving water quality is a local community discussion. Spend upfront in getting the science right to identify the issues correctly and accurately. Put emotions aside.
- Develop policies and methods that are flexible to allow onfarm innovation and provide certainty for decisions and investments.
Remember, every vote counts. If you don’t exercise your right to vote, don’t complain about your rates and councils who don’t play ball.
A rare weather double-whammy has seen many South Island farmers having to deal with unseasonal snow while still cut off from power supplies after an unprecedented windstorm.
OPINION: Recent media commentary from Southland Federated Farmers has raised concerns among our rural communities, particularly around Environment Southland’s approach to winter grazing inspections and nitrogen reporting. But let’s be clear, much of what’s been said simply doesn’t reflect reality.
OPINION: Environment Canterbury's (ECan) decision recently to declare a so-called “nitrate emergency” is laughable.
A shameless political stunt is how Federated Farmers is describing the Canterbury Regional Council decision to declare “a nitrate emergency” on the back of its latest annual groundwater quality survey.
Federated Farmers say Environment Canterbury's decision to declare a 'nitrate emergency' is a shameless political stunt that won't help anyone.
With the current situation in the European farm machinery market being described as difficult at best, it’s perhaps no surprise that the upcoming AgriSIMA 2026 agricultural machinery exhibition, scheduled for February 2026 at Paris-Nord Villepinte, has been cancelled.
The Meat Industry Association of New Zealand (MIA) has launched the first in-market activation of the refreshed Taste Pure Nature country-of-origin brand with an exclusive pop-up restaurant experience in Shanghai.
Jayna Wadsworth, daughter of the late New Zealand wicketkeeper Ken Wadsworth, has launched an auction of cricket memorabilia to raise funds for I Am Hope's youth mental health work.
As we move into the 2025/26 growing season, the Tractor and Machinery Association (TAMA) reports that the third quarter results for the year to date is showing that the stagnated tractor market of the last 18 months is showing signs of recovery.
DairyNZ chair Tracy Brown is urging dairy farmers to participate in the 2026 Levy vote, to be held early next year.
Beef + Lamb New Zealand (B+LNZ) is calling for nominations for director roles in the Eastern North Island and Southern South Island electoral districts.
OPINION: Microplastics are turning up just about everywhere in the global food supply, including in fish, cups of tea, and…
OPINION: At a time when dairy prices are at record highs, no one was expecting the world's second largest dairy…
