Editorial: Reality bites!

However, few are likely to have their cheque books open.

This year’s event could be reminiscent of a time back in the 1980s when a team of farmers visited Fieldays with tee shirts emblazoned with the wording: ‘Crime doesn’t pay and neither does farming!’

Rampant on-farm inflation, falling prices, growing costs and red tape has placed the farming sector in an unenviable position.

Just this week, Beef+Lamb NZ’s economic service reported that on farm inflation was now at its highest level in 40 years.

“We thought last year was bad,” B+LNZ chief economist Andrew Burtt said about the data showing on-farm inflation is running at 16.3% - two and a half times the consumer price inflation rate of 6.7%.

To make matters worse, B+LNZ is also forecasting a 30% decrease in average farm profit this year.

Things are not much better in the dairy sector with Fonterra forecasting the new season farmgate milk price of $8/kgMS. For many dairy farmers an $8 milk price is only the break-even point, with rising input costs and interest rates adding to their bottom-line pressures.

And let’s not forget the devastation and havoc that bad weather and cyclones have wreaked on farmers and growers in the north and east of the North Island this year.

As B+LNZ chief executive Sam McIvor points out this news further highlights the financial and regulatory pressures facing farmers. McIvor adds it is another reason why the Government must put the brakes on its raft of environment policy changes.

“When farmers are impacted in this way, it has a knock-on effect to the wider economy – including businesses that service farms like vets, trucking companies, shearers and many more. It also impacts businesses where farmers spend their family incomes,” he says.

It might be wise this year for the Fieldays PR team to ease back on its usual hyperbolic claims of record sales and farmers spending big money at the show.

The Fieldays could be rather subdued this year as reality bites.