Editorial: Sense at last
OPINION: For the first time in many years, a commonsense approach is emerging to balance environmental issues with the need for the nation's primary producers to be able to operate effectively.
If it doesn’t, voters might need to do it for them. Because while there was brief acknowledgement during Covid of how this country earns a dollar, the Government hasn’t deviated from policies that will make NZ Ag less competitive and potentially unviable, long-term.
The myriad headwinds facing our economy this year will provide a rude awakening for the country: if agricultural export returns fall, who will provide the revenue for NZ to pay its bills? Tourism? Not a chance. While still a large export earner at $26.5b in 2022, tourism as a percentage of GDP has halved to about 5% and is yet to recover.
Food and fibre export receipts for the same period, the year ending June 2022, were more than double that at $53.3b. All the talk about ‘export diversification’ has proved just that – talk. And current government thinking says our coal and gas reserves can no longer be extracted for export.
Nothing else comes close to agriculture as a means of keeping the economy flush.
The signs for our biggest earner are mixed in 2023, to say the least. China has yet to resume buying meat and dairy in the quantities we’re used to seeing, which is affecting farmgate prices for both; the quantity and quality of our horticultural exports has been hit hard by cyclones although the exact extent of this remains unclear; and macro factors such as farm input prices and interest rates are working against us.
The Labour Government likes to take the credit when ag exports are booming, yet it is actively enacting policy that hinders primary industry. In cahoots with the Greens, it is planning worse policy that could tip the sector out of bed altogether. We cannot afford the looming bill for this lack of foresight.
Time for a wake-up call New Zealand! Your standard of living is propped up by farmers. Keep tacitly approving government policy that reduces the productivity of farmers, that forces production of food and fibre offshore to countries with lower environmental, animal welfare and food safety standards, and NZ will pay a heavy price.
