Fee grates with cheesemaker

Biddy Fraser-Davies, artisan cheese maker of Cwmglyn Farmhouse Cheese, Eketahuna. PHOTO/LYNDA FERINGA

An Eketahuna artisan cheesemaker is seeking support for a petition that will help with the survival of small scale cheesemakers in New Zealand.

Biddy Fraser-Davies of Cwmglyn Farmhouse Cheese addressed the petition to the Ministry of Primary Industries, asking that the annual fee payable by small production artisan cheesemakers to MPI be calculated with the actual produced milk solids total, rather than one "dreamed up by MPI".

"The problem is, as I've explained in my petition, the New Zealand Dairy Industry is greatly dependent on the big companies because so much of the export market is dependent on Fonterra and large companies like them," she said.

"So unfortunately in New Zealand, all the regulations were written with the Fonterra scale.

"They really didn't think that there would be mad old women living in Eketahuna with four cows who would win international cheese awards and make cheese."

Mrs Fraser-Davies said that she pays just under $600 to MPI each year based on their standard of what small scale cheese production is.

"Their definition of the smallest scale of cheese production is one that makes 16,500kg of milk solids per year," she said.

"I do about 1200kg.

"Now under their formula I have to pay just under $600 a year. Under the formula that I have devised which is based on the actual milk solids that I produce I would only have to pay $39.74. And I'm quite happy to pay that - absolutely no objection at all."

She said this disregard to small artisan cheesemakers by MPI was discouraging other people from creating their own small-scale cheese businesses .

"People expect that there will be lots of artisan cheese makers in New Zealand because it's a wonderful dairy country," she said.

"MPI deny that it isn't a one rule fits all, but it basically is because the regulations are written assuming that you are either a huge factory or a huge farm milking hundreds of cows.

"And you either give up because it's too expensive, or you battle on for years and years and be a pain to everybody like me.

"If we can get a regime set up that makes it easier for younger people to be able to make good cheese, it will be a great thing." -Go to tinyurl.com/biddycheese to sign the petition online.