Dialogue: Getting seriously green

The risks of a dairy farmer not meeting acceptable standards for food safety, environmental quality and animal welfare go well beyond the farm gate, says Waikato dairy farmer GRAHAM McBRIDE.

Since the first shipment of refrigerated butter left our shores in 1882, New Zealand dairy farmers have always responded positively to changing market signals.

The next five years will demand that our farm businesses respond far more vigorously to environmental and other welfare issues as customers with expanding incomes demand higher ethical standards.

The incomes of New Zealand dairy farmers have already benefited from our perceived clean, green and kind image and the industry is aware that its credibility over practices on the farm is under increasing scrutiny from consumers.

With the present customer focus on product traceability and an emerging trend to look at the ethics of production systems, we can no longer trumpet this image without ensuring that there is substance to it.

As well as environmental issues, other practices are being linked to product integrity such as animal welfare and people issues.

Animal-friendly practices are undergoing a paradigm shift and will become an integral part of our pasture-to-plate quality image.

Pending legislation will encompass the "five freedoms", first developed in Britain, into our animal welfare legislation.

They are freedom from hunger and thirst; discomfort, pain, injury; disease; fear and distress; and freedom to express normal behaviour.

Tail docking and calf inductions are already widely acknowledged as unsustainable practices.

Other welfare issues such as chronic lameness, high animal mortality and wastage, and lack of shade and shelter could attract customer attention.

Human resources are also an area of burgeoning global interest.

The way farm production systems acknowledge the physical and emotional welfare of staff and enhance their skills will be of increasing concern to the discerning buyer.

In response to such ethical demands, our dairy farmers can now expect an unprecedented interest in their farm production systems.

In food retailing, much of the buying control worldwide is expected to be with a handful of companies.

One prediction says that within a decade there will be only 10, multinational retail giants.

These businesses are now focusing firmly on product integrity, on identifying ways of limiting their own business risk and being able to position their brand at the forefront of customers' minds.

At a United States agri-food forum, I debated with a US food retailer who employs more than a million staff.

The company is developing in-house programmes which are not thinking of New Zealand farmers (or even US farmers) and will ignore impacts on farming systems and associated compliance costs.

In addition, our dairy farmers have yet to fully appreciate the significance of the local market.

Beyond the dollar value that domestic dairy products earn (about $1 billion annually) there is the critical issue of what local customers perceive farmers are doing to our environment.

The knowledge economy and tourism are regarded as the lifeblood of our economy and in terms of voting strength and political support, New Zealand agriculture is becoming marginalised.

As a result, farmers can expect to be on the receiving end of much more agriculture-unfriendly legislation.

An example of this is the possible demands of a million Aucklanders in regard to using water from the Waikato River.

If they develop suspicions about "extras" in their drinking water - organochlorines and dioxins, nitrates, faecal coliforms, sediments - then they could vote for environmental management practices which could affect many present business activities.

Overseas, there are a number of cases where consumer-driven logic has resulted in threats or consumer boycotts of products that are perceived as ethically damaging.

Among these is McDonald's, which was forced to modify its buying of imported beef from Central America after accusations that it was causing deforestation in countries such as Costa Rica.

There was a "Murder King" look-a-like advertising campaign to force Burger King to adopt animal-friendly farming methods among its beef suppliers.

Already, many overseas dairy companies have, or are in the process of developing, quality assurance programmes to ensure optimum risk management.

As examples, suppliers to many Australian dairy companies and every Dutch dairy farmer must be quality assurance accredited as a condition of supply.

Britain has been at the forefront of traceability and welfare issues.

The BSE, or mad cow disease, saga has only intensified the public's suspicion of farm risk management.

In response to many on-farm quality systems British agriculture now has the British Farm Standard.

This is a quality assurance programme that puts farm-risk management into a single national standard.

The standard is a promise to consumers that all food carrying the national brand has been produced to the highest possible standard of food safety, animal welfare and environmental care.

Last year, for the first time, European Union auditors arrived on New Zealand farms, signalling a big change for our dairy industry.

From now on, farmers will have to expect spot checks on their farms and their farming practices by customers.

The risks of an individual farmer not meeting acceptable standards in terms of food safety and quality, environmental quality and animal welfare go well beyond the farm gate.

Auditors have the power to issue non-compliance notices to companies and cancel export certificates.

In a move to ensure that our marketing credibility is secure, the dairy industry announced environmental and animal welfare policies.

The Dairy Board has indicated five animal welfare areas and six environmental issues with which farmers will be expected to comply.

Over the past three years, the industry has designed a quality assurance package for all dairy farmers. This farmer risk-management package is branded "market focused".

It aims to meet mainstream customer requirements as easily and efficiently as possible.

It provides assurance to consumers, whether they are in New Zealand or Europe, that the product has been produced to a specified animal and environmentally friendly standard.

Farmers need to realise that the minimum, on-farm quality standards that they have been used to have now changed and that this process will accelerate.

The customers have been giving farmers the signals.

How individuals respond to these could well affect the whole dairy industry and ultimately every New Zealander.

In my crystal ball, I believe the next few years will see the dairy industry taking a new approach to rewarding outstanding food safety and quality.

And the New Zealand public will contribute to environmental excellence by way of compensation for lost farm production.

* Graham McBride is a Waikato dairy farmer and promoter of good environmental and food safety practices.

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