By Rhea Dasent, senior policy advisor for Federated Farmers Federated Farmers has a long history of submitting on Wairoa rates, so our ears pricked up when we saw the current Wairoa Rates Review. We were especially interested to read in the Council’s own words “This proposal would simplify the rating system and transfer rates from […]
Opinion
Reviewing the year we’d all rather forget
Kim Reilly, Federated Farmers South Island Regional Policy Manager Queen Elizabeth II once described 1992 as an “annus horribilis” – a horrible year. Moving forward 28 years, I’m not even sure there is a sufficient (publishable) term to sum up 2020. Let’s just say, it was a bloody shocker. Covid19 created the perfect storm for […]
Hold on to your wallet – bumpy council rates ride ahead
By Nigel Billings, Federated Farmers Senior Policy Advisory With local authorities due to roll out their Long-Term financial Plans in early 2021, a hard road beckons for rural ratepayers. This isn’t just a Covid-19 thing. Some councils, particularly in tourism centres, took big hits on their revenue in 2020 but new demands on council coffers […]
A Christmas message of thanks from Federated Farmers
Before Federated Farmers farewells 2020, it wants to salute and thank some generally unsung heroes. “We all got used to talking about clusters of infection with Covid-19, but in another sense that word cluster is somewhat apt for the entire year,” Feds President Andrew Hoggard says. “It could have been a lot worse for our […]
Smartening up our act on environmental data
By Chris Allen, Federated Farmers environment spokesperson OPINION: Have we got the smart environmental data we need to inform smart environmental investments? The short answer is no. Federated Farmers has this week published analysis of the Government’s Our Freshwater 2020 (FW2020) report jointly published by the Ministry for the Environment and Statistics New Zealand. It’s […]
Planting trees is only a carbon band-aid
By Mike Cranstone, President Whanganui Federated Farmers OPINION: With the frantic pace that this Government wants to transition our country to a Zero Carbon economy, should we step back a moment and make sure that the principles and science are robust? There has been significant research into understanding the role of different greenhouse gases in climate […]
Compelling case for glyphosate use – with care
A year studying glyphosate here and overseas on a Nuffield Scholarship has convinced Mid Canterbury arable farmer Hamish Marr it is a vital tool in agriculture. But it comes with responsibilities, and if farmers and growers are arrogant about its use, they risk losing it through political pressure. Can we farm without glyphosate? Of course […]
Bleak picture ahead on rising rates demands
Federated Farmers has produced the 13th edition of our annual rates report newsletter. In it we provide detail on our local policy work on rates and local government funding along with coverage of the major developments impacting council funding and financing this year and, in the years to come. In the unprecedented times of early […]
Farmers walking the talk on climate change
OPINION: With the government declaring a climate emergency, it’s timely to recap what actions farmers are taking to further reduce agriculture’s environmental footprint. I say ‘further reduce’ deliberately. We’re already ahead of many other dairy and meat producing nations on the greenhouse gas front. While the global average for emissions from milk production, processing, and transport […]
PINZ is almost here … listen to FEDTalks
The Primary Industries NZ Summit starts on Monday in Wellington Building on the strength of our inaugural summit in 2019 ‘PINZ’ brings producers from across the broad range of NZ’s primary industries together, along with policymakers, scientists, suppliers and other key stakeholders to hear local and global experts. It’s about developing solutions to the challenges […]