Andrew Olsen Rural Contractors NZ CEO, Mike Butterick our local MP, and Sally Dryland, Tararua Feds Co-President catching up on what challenges we are facing together.
Andrew Olsen Rural Contractors NZ CEO, Mike Butterick our local MP, and Sally Dryland, Tararua Feds Co-President catching up on what challenges we are facing together.
At Federated Farmers we’ve just been through a staffing restructure. It would have been great if we could have held on to the 28 positions, but reality bites when you look at the budget.
We do still have the largest policy team outside of Government with 21 staff and for a quick comparison Beef + Lamb have six and DairyNZ eight.
Certainly, due to government and council bodies needing to acquire policy staff in the past few years, the salaries offered by these central agencies was more than 50 per cent higher than what the market had accepted as the norm previously.
I for one certainly value the work these folk do, especially in regard to district and regional council plans.
Our focus now needs to return to working with Government to make workable regulations and achieve the desired outcomes prior to laws being written.
This hasn’t been easy over the past few terms with the imposition of rules driven from a regulatory angle - how can we punish those who don’t do what we want?
Wellington will need to become more of a focus too, as after regulations are legislated and regional councils notify plans the only way to make change is through the court systems.
Current environmental court costs are between $300-$400k per case - both Waikato and Otago are currently in this space. Groups such as Fish & Game may consider this money well spent, but for many farmers this represents money that would have achieved better outcomes if invested in on-farm mitigations.
As farmers, it would be great if the levy bodies and Federated Farmers could pull together and cut out duplication of costs.
Monitoring progress weighing cattle. If you want to focus on these tasks join up!
Vets on Farm
The Veterinary Council of New Zealand are offering a new initiative funded by MPI called Vets on Farm which funds local vet clinics to provide on-farm advice and support including farm systems reviews/planning, disease sampling/testing and herd health planning.
Simon Marshall at Vet Services Dannevirke (06 374 7021) and Rachael Fouhy from Tararua Vets (06 374 6062) are who you should register with – just do it before December 18.
You don’t have to be a current client, but you do need to derive your income from the farm. While data collected will be shared with MPI it will be anonymised (ie. you won’t be able to be identified).
Services will be delivered in the new year, and completed by March 31.
Tararua Back on Track
After several conversations in Wellington last week, Tararua Federated Farmers has written to Minister of Agriculture Todd McClay requesting that the Tararua Back on Track $1 million funding requirement of completing works by December 31 be extended until March 31, 2024. Local MP Mike Butterick was copied in and is advocating in this space for those affected.
Woodville Christmas event
Finally from me - there’s a Federated Farmers Tararua members’ Christmas informal get-together in Woodville on December 12 from 6pm. RSVP on 027 423 8997.
