Water, rain big issues - Feds

 Rolleston told Rural News the big question mark hanging over the industry concerns the dairy payout. All eyes will be on the global dairy trade auctions in the next few weeks and that result will be “reasonably telling”.

Meanwhile, Rolleston believes the outlook for sheep and beef farmers is not bad, though parts of South Canterbury are dry. 

“They’re having to sell early and that’s not always the best use of prices,” he says. 

Another big issue is water and Rolleston says this will play out differently across the country.

“Decisions on water are being made at a regional level not a national level. Over the next 12 months or so that will be in Waikato, Hawkes Bay, Canterbury and Southland. There is an opportunity for water to be shared more equitably, particularly as we see things developing here in Canterbury, and in Waikato. As the water resource gets to its fully allocated state we have to try to think of different ways of dealing with the issue of allocation.”

Rolleston says the concept of ‘first in first served’ no longer works and people are beginning to see a need to work out with fellow farmers in their catchment the best ways to deal with water issues.

With the dairy sector having a high profile and seen by many as dominating the primary sector, Rolleston believes that there needs to be a balance.

“A diverse agricultural economy is a resilient economy and we’d be worried if there was a dominance of any one sector,” he says. 

Rolleston points out that in the early part of the last century Southland was full of dairy farms and then became full of sheep farmers.