Ag Issues

British bury food miles

2010-07-09T11:40:00.001+12:00

It would appear British shoppers are a savvy lot. According to research findings released by AgResearch and given wide media coverage here, British shoppers are not ‘concerned’ about food miles.

Rather, they are more interested in the price of their fresh food than where it comes from.

While I have no research to back up my belief, I suspect New Zealand shoppers are of pretty much the same mind.

The life cycle of the food miles concept is interesting.

Born in the UK in the 1990s on the back of conceptual papers about carbon generation, by 2005 the theory had got legs and was causing us concerns that it could become a barrier to our European food exports.

Lincoln University dampened enthusiasm for it in 2006 with a study that compared the total energy used to produce food in Europe and New Zealand. In 2009 the Australian Bureau of Agriculture added its weight with the statement that it was a ‘misleading indicator of the carbon footprint of foods’.

Then, this year, AgResearch demonstrated that getting NZ lamb from a British supermarket to the consumer’s home added more to the carbon footprint than all the transportation involved getting the lamb from the NZ farm gate to the British supermarket.

And now we have the coup de grace delivered by the British shopper - they are not interested anyway. It makes you wonder whether they ever were!

As a footnote, the Acting British High Commissioner made the UK’s position on food miles pretty clear in an address he gave in Wellington in June when he said “… we are not interested in food miles. Our approach has been on establishing analysis of the carbon dioxide emissions associated with production, consumption and disposal. If the sums add up, there’s nothing wrong with consuming products from around the globe. This is the UK’s policy.”

It is a comment that appears to have escaped the attention of the media.

Ask, don’t demand, and we may be pleasantly surprised at the result

2010-02-22T14:35:00.000+13:00

At the start of February one farmer, falling back on the argument of his property rights, delayed the fire service and electricity repair crews gaining access to his property, contributing to a major, day-long power disruption across the Auckland region. It caused chaos.

Putting aside the rights and wrongs of the dispute itself, it is a timely reminder that when it comes to civil laws, and local authority regulations and rules, upholding them can be thrown into turmoil when a determined landowner digs their toes in and says ‘no’.

There is no quick fix in such situations, and imagine the consequences if there are hundreds or thousands of landowners saying no at the same time. The impasse would be monumental.

My experiences in relation to this type of issue revolves around local authorities moving to gain increasing amounts of farm specific data to ensure farmers are meeting their environmental requirements under the Resource Management Act and Regional Plans.

Those local authorities that take the attitude the ‘law requires us to do this’ or resort to legal action to force third parties to release information they hold on individual farms, may achieve short-term compliance but their actions create the potential for long-term confrontation.

The real answer to achieving compliance lies in good communication, listening to and respecting opposing points of view, addressing genuine concerns and gaining buy in on the basis of the greater good.

It is far more effective to get people to do things voluntarily than it is to force them to comply.

Achieving consensus and co-operation may take longer, but around the world there is a realisation that collaborative governance achieves better outcomes and greater co-operation than the adversarial approach.

Can we trust the scientists?

2009-12-22T12:56:00.001+13:00

What the climate change ‘debate’ has brought into sharp focus is how intense, personal and manipulative scientific exchanges can become. Frankly, when scientists get their dander up and start exchanging ‘facts’ with the velocity of tennis players in a grand slam event, the public hasn’t got a chance of coming to an understanding of what or who is right.

How can the public know whether information is being used out of context, being interpreted correctly, has peer support or has been outdated by other research; or that the scientist quoting the research has the necessary qualifications in that field to be an expert.

Even in the more gentile world of nutrients, we regularly face challenges over differing scientific opinion.

There are many elements that go in to making scientists combative.

Partly, it’s their makeup – by nature they are constantly trying to understand more, push boundaries, solve challenges and question current thinking.

Another key contributor is the way we fund scientific research. Research projects are funded on a competitive, value added basis. The bigger the problem you identify, and the more important the promised answer (whether it’s saving the world or a bigger commercial return) the greater the chances of having your project funded, or given the green light to proceed.

This is not a new phenomenon, and even geniuses (or perhaps because they were geniuses) such as Sir Isaac Newton and Einstein were in constant dispute with their peers.

The key thoughts I have around this are that scientists need to have a duty of responsibility and integrity when putting up projects for funding or pursuing their beliefs; while those that fund scientific research or approve projects need to factor into their decision making the ‘funding and personality agendas’.

As always scepticism (which I define as having a doubting or questioning attitude or state of mind) will represent a good defensive screen against being taken in.

Lies, damned lies, and statistics … or unpaletable truth!

2009-12-09T15:56:00.001+13:00

Many that encounter data that doesn’t sit with their strongly held views are quick to trot out the quip made famous by Mark Twain about ‘lies’ and ‘statistics’. It’s a good standby, as it circumvents the need to explain the disparity between their view and what the hard information is saying.

Recently United Future leader Peter Dunne ripped into the fertiliser industry, claiming self regulation and best practice was not working and proposed ‘tough limits on fertiliser use.’

What fired Peter up was a report that the Manawatu River was among the worst in the western world.

The fertiliser industry agrees with him that the river must be cleaned up, and a good start point would be the 100,000 cubic metres of treated waste discharged into the river daily. Urban discharge and farm run off are also contributors.

Where we diverge with Peter is the claim that fertiliser self regulation and best practice are ‘not working’.

Sorry Peter, but it is working, and the statistics prove it. Nutrient use has been in decline for four years, and while use in 2009 dropped like a stone in response to the world recession, there is a clear downward trend that started in 2004.

Already 38% of all nutrients applied are being managed by nutrient budgets and 5% through nutrient management plans - our target is 80% by 2013. Some 211,000 ha of farmland is under the control of nutrient management plans, some 12% of our 2016 target of 1.7m ha.

So let’s give some credit to farmers that are stepping up to the mark, and the fertiliser industry for taking responsibility for the products it sells.

Clashing with farmers over water quality is not inevitable … but likely

2009-11-13T15:14:00.000+13:00

I have a growing sense of apprehension that water quality may be the next defining ‘battle ground’ between farmers and regional councils.

The Government has laid out its broad principles for improving water quality so that our rivers, streams and lakes are ‘swimmable and fishable’. Now, agencies representing government, regional councils and sector interest groups are working through how to ‘make it happen’.

Increasingly, talk around the decision making table is about setting water quality standards which farmers will have to meet, and how farmers will achieve these standards.

What is missing from the discussion is how to convince farmers to comply because they have bought into the issue?

Surely we have learnt from the clashes that have occurred over issues such as the aborted carbon tax, and the still being debated inclusion of on-farm greenhouse gases into the emissions trading scheme.

Rather than focus at this time on rules and how they will be policed, now is the time to win over the hearts and minds of the rural community to what may be required.

There are numerous examples of Governments of various persuasions showing skill in taking the community with them before bringing in potentially unpopular measures – one can think of tougher drink driving rules, smoking in public places and even cell phone use in cars.

While improving water quality may be a ‘no brainer’ in terms of winning urban support, that will not be the case with farmers when they are faced with the realities of making yet more changes to the way they farm.

If we want to avoid yet another clash with farmers, we need to set the ‘how’ button on pause, and fast forward the ‘why’ debate.

Hilton

Lifting food production would show real world leadership

2009-11-04T14:10:00.001+13:00

The prediction by the United Nation’s food agency that food production will have to increase by 70 percent over the next 40 years to feed the world’s growing population should send shivers down the spine of central and regional government decision makers, and environmentalists.

The UN is saying that simply to produce enough food to prevent future starvation, governments will have to invest in, and farmers will have to produce, more food on existing land, as well as bring more non productive land into production.

It will involve greater habitat change, the adoption of rather than resistance to forward thinking science, practices and technologies, and ever greater farming intensification.

All at a time when throughout the developed world more and more constraints are being placed on production in the name of conservation, climate change and environmentalism.

At present the world is agonising over making changes to slow down the threat of climate change, yet walking alongside it within the same timeframe is the just as frightening danger of world starvation.

When the world gathers in Copenhagen in December in an attempt to edge closer to reaching global agreement and co-operation in combating climate change, will the world rise to the challenge of reconciling putting limits on agricultural production while addressing hunger and starvation.

It is an area where New Zealand could really show world leadership in a way that will make a difference, rather than practice tokenism by being the first off the blocks in reducing on-farm greenhouse gas emissions

Hilton

Give us your food …

2009-11-03T13:34:00.001+13:00

One of the great benefits of going overseas on business is that it lets you see the issues we face from the perspective of others.

Recently, as a guest of the International Plant Nutrition Institute I presented a paper to a conference in Brazil, and during gaps in the programme and in the evenings I fell into discussion with other participants as to what were our respective ‘hot’ agricultural issues.

While greenhouse gas emissions were a common area of concern, what surprised others was our decision to include on-farm emissions in our Emissions Trading Scheme.

Yes, they agreed each country should play its part and accept the logic of including agriculture’s processing and manufacturing emissions – but they were surprised that alone among counties we were forging ahead with on-farm restrictions.

They pointed out that it might ultimately reduce food production, that 15 percent of the world’s population already has inadequate access to food supplies and that, if the world’s projected population in 20 years time is to be fed, food production will have to increase by 40 percent.

They ran the line that the world needed our food – and the more we could produce the better - more desperately than it needed what will in reality be a miniscule cut in global emissions.

I found it hard to fault their logic, but it’s not an argument that will have legs in New Zealand as we move towards setting our emission goals.

Perhaps it’s because we are a lucky country that will never have to worry about producing adequate food supplies to feed our people. Perhaps you have to look hunger in the face to help you order priorities.

Hilton

Primary sector wants on-farm responsibility for emissions – why is Government saying no?

2009-10-29T11:58:00.000+13:00

While the political parties anguish over what is New Zealand’s ‘fair share’ in setting our greenhouse gas emissions, a recommendation of the review committee on the emissions trading scheme that has passed without comment is that rather than farmers be the party responsible as the point of obligation for emissions, this will rest with ‘processors’ such as Fonterra, meat processors and the fertiliser co-operatives.

This is an astonishing decision given that

• The review committee freely acknowledges that it is ‘preferable’ for farmers to be the point of obligation and
• All within the primary sector are of the view that if agricultural is to be included, farmers should know and be accountable for their own emissions.

It would appear the only objection to farmers being responsible is that it involves ‘higher transaction and administration costs’ even though there is little evidence to support this position

In its submission to the committee the fertiliser industry made it clear that the data required to estimate emissions is already being collected, and that through the use of the existing Overseer computer modelling system, administering the system need not necessarily be an administrative nightmare.

The primary sector wants farmers to be responsible for their emissions as it means there would be a financial incentive to reduce emissions and farmers would benefit from selling emission credits. If the committee’s recommendation prevails, and processors are responsible, conscientious and indifferent farmers end up paying the same cost through higher charges from their processor.

This decision also undermines the recent decision by Government agencies and the primary sector to spend $10 million measuring the effectiveness of nitrification inhibitors to enhance pasture growth while reducing nitrous oxide emissions and nitrate leaching.

Applying inhibitors is a cost to farmers, and unless there is a return in the form of an emission credit, it challenges the cost-benefit analysis.

While it is not uncommon to disregard the views of agriculture, this must be a rare example where those that represent farmers’ interests are calling for the farm gate to take responsibility, while politicians resist.

How bizarre, how bizarre!

2009-10-07T09:46:00.000+13:00

In sport, one of the golden rules is that you never complain about the referee, unless you win. The reason is obvious: if you win you can’t be seen as a winger.

On that basis I’m prepared to be critical of the NZ Food Safety Authority’s decision to not audit ‘novel’ fertiliser importers, manufacturers and traders under the ACVM Cost Recovery Provisions.

Novel fertilisers fall outside of mainstream ‘conventional’ and ‘organic’ products, and cover a grab bag of products some of which claim to improve pasture or plant growth through processes that often defy good science, or is said to be ‘proved’ by research and testing that does not enjoy peer support.

In its latest ‘Slice of Life’ review of the fertiliser industry, the Authority’s reviewer recommended that a targeted selection of importers, manufacturers and traders of novel fertilisers should be subject to a formal audit.

The Authority’s rather weak response to this recommendation is: Fertilisers are considered low risk and a formal audit programme is considered as placing an undue compliance cost on this industry sector. It explains the Authority responds to suspicions or allegations of non compliance rather than pro-active monitoring and audit.

The fertiliser industry feels let down by this decision. While mainstream players have to jump through hoops and comply with endless requirements (which we accept on the basis of good governance) those that practice at the margin of the nutrient spectrum ignore the rules with impunity.

On approaching two of these novel fertiliser vendors, the Authority’s reviewer notes in the report the vendors: ‘actively avoided or, in one case, signalled their refusal to be interviewed’.

From our experience not only do some of these novel fertiliser merchants often make the most outrageous claims for their products, they also often have the cheek to imply that those who have to meet stringent controls before they market their products are hoodwinking farmers.

To mimic the words of a well know pop song: ‘how bizarre, how bizarre’.

And why have I the courage to complain about the Authority’s decision? In commenting on Fert Research’s two member companies – Ballance and Ravensdown – the Authority stated: [they] had very good awareness of NZFSA jurisdiction and ACVM Act requirements … They provided clear evidence that they were operating under strict process control, ensuring that product they produced was labelled appropriately ‘fit for purpose’.

Hilton