Groundswell NZ still wants solo meeting with Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern

Groundswell New Zealand co-founder Bryce McKenzie. Photo / File

Groundswell New Zealand is still pushing for a meeting with Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, without the presence of industry bodies.

Following a request for a meeting to discuss the impact of what Groundswell describes as "unworkable Government policies", she offered to let the rural group sit in on her meeting with established industry bodies.

But co-founder Bryce McKenzie said the group did not want to meet her with DairyNZ and Beef + Lamb New Zealand as it had had meetings with those organisations and found it "very, very difficult to get them to understand where we are coming from in any way, shape or form".

It reiterated its request for a solo meeting, which was declined, but it would continue to push for a meeting — even offering to host Ardern when she was next passing through Gore.

Groundswell felt "grassroots" farmers needed to be heard on their concerns about the impact those regulations would have on farmers, and how some were not keen on taking over the family farm in generational farming families.

Groundswell was New Zealand's largest organisation in terms of subscribed grassroots farmers, growers and supporters and believed the Prime Minister should meet it for a discussion, "not pigeonhole us with the establishment industry body lobbyists", McKenzie said.

Groundswell has held two protests, Howl of a Protest and Mother of All Protests, which attracted massive turnouts.

Asked whether more protest action was planned, McKenzie said the group was "a little bit gun shy".

"It could give a platform for some unsavoury people to flex their muscles."

He was confident the group continued to have strong support and he was particularly grateful for the support shown from urban-dwellers.

At the moment, Groundswell was focused on He Waka Eke Noa - it had put together its own alternative to the partnership to reduce primary sector emissions - and the Water Services Bill, which would affect all rural properties, McKenzie said.

It was established that New Zealand farmers were the most greenhouse gas-efficient producers of food in the world, he said.

Conscious of the need to be professional, the group had employed a company to do its communications work as it "tried to smarten things up a bit".

His involvement with Groundswell was all-consuming, but it was not something he would walk away from, he said.

"At the end of the day, I think it needs to be done. Someone's got to stand up and say they [the Government] are wrong," he said.

Farmers were under a lot of pressure; in the South, they were facing drought conditions, there were also record input prices and "all the stuff we are being bombarded with".

At one of the protests, a farmer commented that the event made him feel proud to be a farmer; that made him feel terrible - the fact that farmers could not be proud all the time when they were "supporting the whole economy of the country".

"Things like that keep you going," he said.