Tuesday, 30 June 2015 02:33

Farmers need support on environment

Written by Rural News Group

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The environment is a big area where sheep and beef farmers need a lot more support, says Beef + Lamb NZ chairman James Parsons.

BLNZ spends a lot more than just on promotion and is constantly revising priorities.

“Environment has definitely been a big area where sheep and beef farmers have needed a lot more support as they engage in environmental discussions on water quality in particular,” says Parsons. “We have upped the investment there and as a consequence the investment in promotional money has been reduced over time.

“Pressures around the environment are not going away. There are a whole lot of licence-to-farm type activities that farmers need a stronger voice on. We are looking at how we balance our requirements. We need to look at getting more people into agriculture through promoting farming as a career path so there are a lot of significant areas we could invest in and need to invest in.”

But that needs to be balanced with requirements in the market as well. $2m a year is invested in market access activities to try to reduce some of the $318m a year in tariffs that farmers pay.

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