Arable advocacy?
OPINION: Spare a thought for the arable farmer, squeezed on one side by soft global prices and on the other by limits on further yield increases.
The 'lucky' farmer informed MBIE - three times by email - that under the Covid red settings the farm was closed to all visitors and attached relevant information from the Government's own websites, which advised minimal contact and Zoom meetings if possible.
After much to-ing and fro-ing, MBIE finally agreed to conduct the investigation by phone.
The bureaucrat conducting the audit was told that all farm staff had Federated Farmers' contracts.
He then asked "Who is Federated Farmers?"
The farmer was then told to email said contracts to MBIE, but with each of these at over 100 pages, and rural internet flaky at the best of times, they were finally advised to post the agreements to Wellington.
