Long way from being out of the woods yet

The sense of calm and normality pervading the country for over three months has been shattered by the latest cases of community transmission the country. Until today New Zealanders have been going about their everyday lives, most of them still with jobs and being paid, at least until the wage subsidy ends, while the major concerns appeared to be what Judith’s raised eyebrows say, which political poll is closer to reality, and how many more people would break out of quarantine. Suddenly the media has a lot more than the election to get its teeth into.

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Regulation risks hindering innovation

The fast pace of regulatory change by the government poses a challenge for farmers trying to earn their social licence to operate.

 

The Emissions Trading Reform Bill and the proposed Essential Freshwater Policy are the two latest examples of regulation which are set to be introduced into law before the Election and will inevitably impose serious costs or penalties on farmers as currently drafted Some provisions run counter to good, common sense farming practices, and the ETR has the potential to side swipe the sheep and beef sector, as it incentivises the conversion of sheep and beef farms into forestry.

Government must provide leadership

In contrast to its positive social agenda to improve the average person’s lot by lifting the minimum wage, increasing teachers’ pay rates and attempting to increase home ownership, this government seems to have gone missing in action with respect to the farming sector. Apart from Primary Industries Minister Damien O’Connor’s rather lonely efforts as a cheerleader for agriculture, other government ministers only pop their heads above the parapet when there’s some good environmental news or forestry initiative to crow about, or a new, and scientifically flawed, methane reduction target to ask farmers to meet. 

Coalition never benefits smaller partner

Now the special votes have been counted New Zealand can expect a decision on the formation of a government for the next three years. Who knows, by the time you read this it’s possible if unlikely a result might even be known. But one thing is almost certain – whichever partner New Zealand First chooses will end up getting the credit for a successful coalition, while the junior partner or partners will get the blame for what goes wrong.

The botulism scare that wasn’t

So Fonterra’s botulism contamination problem wasn’t a problem after all according to the tests conducted by the Ministry for Primary Industries. It is most unfortunate that Fonterra got it so wrong that it felt the need to wear a hair shirt and submit itself, not to mention its own management, the government and the country as a whole, to the worst public relations disaster imaginable.

 

The original tests were carried out by AgResearch which still stands by its test results, but according to MPI’s tests by global experts, the whey protein contained a different gene from the Clostridium botulinum.

 

MPI took it seriously, the government took it seriously, Gary Romano fell on his sword and two managers have been dismissed. China was completely spooked by the prospect of infant deaths, while Russia and Sri Lanka have discovered an opportunity to place bans, temporary or otherwise, on New Zealand dairy production.

 

Infant formula manufacturers will have suffered untold damage to their businesses, from image, financial and future sales perspectives.

 

The damage to our image abroad has been incalculable. When newspapers all over the world take delight in writing headlines such as ‘100% Manure’ and question our right to promote our tourism industry on the back of our clean, green environment, one wonders whether we can ever recover from this single mistake.

 

The answer is that we will in time, but perhaps nobody will ever really believe the 100% Pure claim again, even if it was never meant to be taken literally.

 

Having said that, the recent spate of food safety problems, among them the apparent discovery of traces of chemicals which weren’t there, is not all that surprising when one thinks about it.

 

New   Zealand’s exports are massively weighted towards agriculturally based food products, all of which have the potential to pose more or less serious food safety issues. This is why MPI’s inspection regime is so comprehensive, although the dairy production problems may suggest to an outside observer that the systems in place are not as failsafe as they should be.

 

Only a couple of days ago Greens spokesperson, Stefan Browning, has called for MPI to stop the practice of allowing meat companies to carry out some of their own inspection procedures and revert to all meat inspection having to be performed by AsureQuality’s meat inspectors. Browning said the meat industry is potentially a comparable risk to the dairy industry.

 

Therefore it’s a great relief that the systems didn’t actually fail in the case of Fonterra’s dirty pipes. Someone who ought to know told me more than a week ago that there would be no traces of Clostridium botulinum found in the whey protein, so it all appears to have been a big fuss about nothing very much.

 

However there is a question as to whether all food safety has suddenly been compromised by a fall in standards caused by devolving responsibility to the companies which produce or process the food products. There is no evidence of a sudden drop in standards in spite of recent events, although conspiracy theorists will assume that independent Government employed inspection has been compromised by companies being allowed to inspect their own products.

 

In this case it was a test by AgResearch, a Crown Research Institute, that provoked the contamination scare, although presumably the product had already been cleared by Fonterra’s in house testing laboratory.

 

In the dairy industry there are 49 Approved Recognised Agencies including both independent testing agencies and company owned laboratories. This latest chain of events does not necessarily invalidate this testing structure.

 

There would appear to be potentially a long queue of people and organisations looking for compensation, including dismissed managers, infant formula manufacturers whose businesses have been undermined, Tourism New Zealand whose brand has been dragged through spilt milk powder and all those businesses which depend on our international reputation.

 

It is ironic that Fonterra has just announced its highest ever payout to farmers which will of course be great for the economy, but that might not be enough to compensate for the damage caused by the company’s PR disaster.

Greens and Labour waging war on overseas investment

The Greens’ private members bill restricting, in other words banning, all sales of farm land of more than 5 hectares to an overseas investor was defeated last week by two votes. Under a Labour/Green coalition, ably assisted by NZ First and the Maori Party, the terrifying thought is this piece of xenophobic ignorance would be passed into law.

Crafar farms saga appears to be over at last

The sale of 16 assorted, somewhat rundown dairy farms to the Chinese buyer, Shanghai Pengxin, looks as though it can finally go ahead, although there is still talk of an appeal by the group headed by Sir Michael Fay.

Crafar Farms OIO approval justified