October has been a month of change, going from one of our wettest winters to suddenly a drying-out spring. Northland surpassed its average annual rainfall mark several months ago; I expect we will see an averaging effect somewhere along the line.
Speaking of changing fronts, more change blew in on our political scene, with a switch from blue to red/black/green. The very day the coalition announced its agreed policies, Federated Farmers committed to working constructively with the new government.
And while we highlighted positives in the programme the government signalled - including the boost to biosecurity, an incremental rise in research and development spending and the $1 billion annual spend on regional development - that's certainly not to say we don't have concerns.
"We've got to knock on the head the erroneous notion that irrigation only means opening up more dairy."
NZ First has tempered Labour's desire to get agriculture under the ETS. If the idea is ticked by a new Climate Change Commission, the initial impost will be reduced from 10 per cent to 5 per cent, but that's still tens of millions of dollars to come out of the sector when none of our trading partners face the same cost.
