‘A lot of action quite quickly’: How the Government won over the farm lobby
Hundreds of pages of emails show farming groups have been in regular contact with Government ministers, pressing for changes to environmental rules. In some cases, the lobbying was followed by Government action.
Let’s be very, very, very clear – there is a co-ordinated attack on small Farmers…
What’s grinding our farmers down?
Farmers across the world are struggling. The global, industrialised food systems have forced many farms, especially smaller ones, out of business. But when politicians and the big agriculture lobbies blame green legislation, they are not only misleading farmers, they are risking their survival.
Europe is the current hot spot for farmer protests at the moment, but farmers’ disgruntlement is much more global than that. Earlier this week, police in northern India have fired tear gas to prevent thousands of protesting farmers demanding minimum crop prices from marching on Delhi. The reasons for the farmers’ despair may vary from country to country, but very often the protesters, and more specifically the biggest lobbies leading the protests, point to excessive environmental protection regulation.
Farmers are facing a real crisis
Farmers’ anger is legitimate and we share it. In just 15 years, the EU has lost almost 40% of its farmers, almost exclusively small and medium ones, who have either gone out of business or been bought up by their increasingly large competitors. Similar trends can be observed in other parts of the world: small and medium farms accounted for nearly half of all agricultural production in the U.S. in the 1990s, whereas today they represent less than a quarter.
The problem is the way industrial agriculture, and more broadly the global food system, is organised. It’s a system that rewards with subsidies harmful farming practices that damages people’s health, fuels the climate crisis, destroys nature and drives inequality by excluding smallholder farmers. Farmers are at the mercy of bigger corporate players up the food chain that impose low prices on the farmers’ products whilst at the same squeezing farmers at the source by raising the price of inputs, such as hybrid seeds, pesticides, fertilisers and animal drugs. This pushes smaller producers out of the market, as only factory farms can survive selling at low prices while bearing higher input costs. Big Ag’s bullying message to family businesses is: get big or get out!
At the same time, exploitative free trade agreements pushed by many governments like the EU Mercosur agreement add to the pressure, entrenchingan extractive system that expands corporate profits and power to the detriment of workers, communities, family farmers and the environment, particularly in the global South.
As the weakest link in the colossal machinery that produces our food, farmers are right to be concerned.
Farmers are plagued by the impacts of the climate crisis…
Human activity has triggered a climate and biodiversity crisis, with global food systems in particular being the main driver of biodiversity loss. Alongside conflicts and economic shocks, extreme weather events (and associated disturbed agricultural production) are the primary drivers of world hunger. This is poised to only get worse as the climate crisis intensifies. A single climate disaster could crush small and medium-sized farms that are already struggling to stay afloat.
…and they are being betrayed by lobby groups and politicians who claim to represent them
Instead of welcoming measures to improve ecosystem services on which farmers largely depend, certain politicians and the big agriculture lobby firms have made nature protection and climate policies an easy scapegoat. In Europe, far-right and conservative parties in particular have been criticised for their attempts to instrumentalise farmers’ discontent and point the finger at environmental regulation. This has led to France relaxing its plans on pesticide phase-out and the EU lowering agricultural targets in its 2040 climate plansand scrapping pesticide plans.
But sending angry farmers the message that green rules are to blame, while supporting a system that only works for a small percentage of giant market players, is nothing short of betrayal.
The most powerful farming lobbies like Europe’s COPA/COGECA are often the driving force behind which rules are to be strengthened and which are to be weakened. They’re the ones with the political influence. The problem is that despite their claims to represent all farmers, they have often taken positions that defend the interests of a minority of farmers: the largest and most powerful ones who thrive in a strikingly unfair food system.
In other parts of the world, conservative governments whose policies are shaped by agribusiness lobbies are leading the charge. In Aotearoa (New Zealand) for example, the newly elected Government plans to strip back environmental regulations in favour of Big Dairy’s interest, doing a disservice to ecological farmers. No regulations hold the biggest polluters accountable for the massive pollution and environmental degradation they cause, and not enough incentives or rewards compensate farmers for adopting sustainable practices.
Many politicians continue to support the largest agribusinesses and frame the crisis as “farmers versus nature”. It’s a false dichotomy that tragically hurts farmers. It deliberately shifts the focus away from the root causes of the problems farmers face and makes their situation worse until only the biggest farms are left. Farmers and nature are allies – it is markets, subsidies and lack of proper regulation that force farmers to make a desperate choice between industrial production and bankruptcy.
Farmers must be encouraged and rewarded for producing food in ways that work with nature, and for doing so for generations to come.
…small farmers in NZ have every right to be angry, they’ve just got the wrong target!
The Biggest Lie in NZ Politics is that NZ Dairy is the cleanest and greenest in the world when the reality is that it’s a cherry picked nonsense that leaves out pollution so NZ Dairy can get to the numbers to pretend to be clean and green.
Russel Norman’s take down of this Dairy propaganda recently was just ruthless…
“NZ is the biggest seller of a simple commodity called dried milk powder, the cheapest of the cheap, and if you look at what is happening in food production around the world they are looking for more environmentally sound food products.
They are looking for higher value products.
We’ve gone down the pathway of the lowest quality commodity you can produce in the world.
NZ is mid range in terms of its environmental cost per kilogram of milk solids, there is nothing special about it, and we do feed a small number of people compared to the billions on the planet and the economics is very clear that you can be just as profitable if you pull back on the stock rate, pull back on the amount of fertiliser and actually produce a higher product.
Organics is in fact doing incredibly well globally, so why don’t we become a producer of dairy rather than the producer of the cheapest commodity on the planet which results in us trashing our water ways and being big climate producers, that’s a better pathway isn’t it?
…he’s so right!
We always ignore that the 40million number is based on us selling milk powder as a base line ingredient filler for the manufactured food industry. The PR spin pretends it’s wholesome NZ cheese and milk and meat those 40million are eating when the truth is the vast majority of what we export is basic bitch milk powder used as a filler ingredient!
The Climate Crisis was some event we feared at the end of the century, what we are seeing is an unleashing of heat events well beyond what we feared.
There is just no plan to adapt to this new reality when it should be the driving force to begin immediate and radical adaptation for what is coming.
We have no comprehension of what is coming and we are simply not prepared for the age of consequences, which makes our current stance at the WTO so inane!
Geoffrey Miller notes our current attempt to force India into risking their food security to allow trans nationals to plunder their domestic markets…
NZ’s dilemma at the WTO’s big meeting in Abu Dhabi
A major gathering of trade ministers from the WTO’s 166 members, ‘MC13’ will take place from February 26-29 in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) capital of Abu Dhabi.
This is not the first time McClay has held the vice-chair role – he was also chosen for the job when he last served as trade minister in 2017.
McClay will be one of three vice-chairs at the summit, to be chaired by UAE trade minister Dr Thani bin Ahmed Al Zeyoudi.
After accepting the role in December, the New Zealand minister said his priorities included removing fisheries subsidies, reforms to the WTO’s dispute settlement process and getting ‘a better deal for agricultural exporters’.
New Zealand, a big food producer, was a major winner in the 1990s ‘Uruguay Round’ of the WTO’s forerunner, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). That deal put limits on state subsidies for agricultural products.
But as more countries joined the WTO, momentum began to dissipate. From the early 2000s, New Zealand increasingly focused on signing bilateral trade agreements instead. The first of these was signed with Singapore in 2000 and the latest, with the European Union (EU), was signed last year.
Still, the sheer size of the WTO means that the potential gains there remain immense. While bigger agreements have remained elusive, from New Zealand’s perspective there are still enough occasional small but significant wins to sustain a belief in the WTO’s overall mission.
For example, trade ministers agreed to eliminate export subsidies on agricultural exports entirely at the WTO’s 10th Ministerial Conference held in Nairobi in 2015.
This kind of success perhaps explains why McClay is taking on what some might see as a thankless job for the second time.
McClay may need to hold some difficult conversations in Abu Dhabi.
This is because India and the United States – two countries with which Wellington currently wants much closer relations – are probably currently the two biggest single barriers to progress at the WTO.
Since 2017, the United States has blocked the appointment of new judges to the WTO’s Appellate Body over a belief that its rulings were overly unfair to it. The strategy has effectively rendered the WTO dispute settlement process pointless, as there is no way for appeals to be heard.
Notably, Joe Biden has continued with an approach closely associated with Donald Trump.
For its part, India’s position on ‘public stockholding’ –governments paying farmers above-market prices for grain in the name of food security – is one of the big agricultural stumbling blocks.
Essentially, India and around 80 other developing countries would like to see changes to the WTO’s 1995 ‘Agreement on Agriculture’ to legitimise the public stock holding process. This agreement, achieved in the Uruguay Round, limits farming subsidies in developing countries to no more than 10 per cent of the value of agricultural production.
By contrast, developed countries – represented in the WTO by the ‘Cairns Group’ that includes New Zealand as a member – tend to see the public stockholding programmes as distortionary and as chipping away at the letter and spirit of the 1995 agreement.
While very different in nature, both the Appellate Body and public stockholding issues threaten to undermine the drive for trade liberalisation backed by New Zealand and embodied by the WTO.
…why the Zombie Jesus would India risk its own food security at a time of massive climate change???
It makes no sense for India to just collapse its most impoverished farmer class so Trans Nationals can undercut them on price and milk enormous profits???
It’s never ever going to happen!
India isn’t that stupid!
If we are building future profits on the fantasy that India is going to willingly allow us to exploit them and cause enormous dislocation amongst their own farmers, then we are delusional.
We are seeing corporate interests swamp and consume small farmers and growers, the people who actually make our produce.
We have to find new ways of connecting with our food
A recent report on food security found NZ had incredibly low food security because it was so open market driven and refused to subsidise farmers.
Which is where we on the Left must drive the debate.
We should absolutely consider subsidising food grown by NZ farmers and horticulturalists and our seafood and meat and dairy that generates a 15% price reduction for all NZ produce consumed here.
For growers we need to protect our most productive growing land for food by giving those producers tax breaks to ensure they can continue to feed NZers first.
Rebuilding a direct link between the harvest grown here, the people who grow it and a grateful local market who enjoy the product WITH a 15% price reduction.
Climate change will kill global free market supply chains, we are locked into hyper-regionalism. We need to build new economic structures, subsidising NZ kai for the domestic market would lock in certainty for producers while strengthening food security for the population.
Increasingly having independent opinion in a mainstream media environment which mostly echo one another has become more important than ever, so if you value having an independent voice – please donate here.
Those stupid old coots at Groinswell driving around in tractors calling Arden a communist when in reality they weren’t paying a cent for emissions or suffering any consequences for effectively poisoning water tables in some parts. All the while getting f’d over by capitalism. There could be a song in it for Alanis Morrisette.
The Paris accord states that emissions cuts must not come at the cost of food production.
Arderns regime was going to knowingly put 20% of farmers out of business, so the food could be grown overseas with higher emissions.
As it is we are left with thousands of hectares of arable land being planted in flammable exotic pine trees because climate change is bad and will cause more bushfires.
Yeah.
Proof please that “Arderns regime was going to knowingly put 20% of farmers out of business” and not reckons or hearsay but documented facts relative to a govt policy. Will be waiting but not holding my breath.
https://www.interest.co.nz/rural-news/118415/guy-trafford-wonders-why-government-effectively-incentivising-agriculture-reduce
Arderns government literally said they were wanting 20% emissions reduction and targeting sheep and beef properties which are by far bigger than dairy by area.
That is not an account of actual govt policy, you are conflating a desire for 20% reduction in emissions to putting farmers out of business. Similarly when farmers were asked to reduce or eliminate stock pissing and shitting in our rivers that met with the same knee jerk Jacinda Ardern blame game of “putting farmers out of business” from the likes of Groundswell.
What are you on about? Who sold land or repurposed it? Were they forced to sell their land? Don’t give us some bollocks that Ardern did that too.
And lets get rid of the price gouging supermarkets and lets see more real farmers markets for fresh produce and the good old four square store return for packaged goods.
Okay I make a commitment to go to the local farmers market. I know I should and it’s time to get with it. It’s not hard I’ve just been too busy otherwise.
You’ve got to wonder how it will end. Badly it seems. Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring published some 60 years past was a warning – ostensibly targeted at the use of pesticides, DDT in particular, but with a much wider message for agricultural practices. At the time Carson accused the chemical industry of spreading disinformation and public officials of accepting the industry’s marketing claims unquestioningly. Nothing much has changed – but we do have a word for it now: greenwashing. Global systems and climate change simply add new variables.
“We’ve gone down the pathway of the lowest quality commodity you can produce in the world.”
And Fonterra is going to sell off its most well known retail brands to focus on on milk powder ingredient. That’s like Warren Buffet selling his Coca Cola shares to focus on sugar cane.
Farming along with tourism the backbone of New Zealand.
So what does that mean Bob? Fresh water is kind of a backbone thing in NZ too. Did anyone say end farming? Farming doesn’t have to be big corporations, consolidating until there is one corporation (that wankers like Seymour would suggest is sold to an overseas buyer)
Bob do you know anything about the appalling damage that farming has done to every river on the Canterbury Plains. You can’t swim in any river. This is primarily because we have too many cows in our area, pissing, walking into rivers and shitting and pissing (of course this still happens), we need to reduce the number of cows on the land. We need to move away from industrial scale farming where endless chemicals our put on the land many of which kill off the microbes in the soil. Look go and see
Tourism on the scale we have is simply not sustainable either.
Climate Change is coming faster than ever before, and we need to cut back on the endless flying that is done to and from this country of ours.
Two years ago I made the decision not to fly again. I have kids and grandkids living in the UK and in the US but I am much more worried about their and their children’s future than anything else.
Michal. 100%. Canterbury rivers are a dystopian tragedy for the people and for the land. The summers when we lived in those rivers have gone, with politicians as low quality as the commodities which they produce. I will die worried about my children’s and my grandchildren’s future, as I do now.
If you don’t know what I mean Wheel then that’s a shame.
The anti Farmer/Tourism sentiment on this site is dreadful.
Your inability to understand real events is dreadful also, I will try explaining it to you.
I imagine that you would know that any person or business that relies on increasing their debt level every year to remain solvent is eventually going to go bankrupt and most creditors will be unpaid, on a world-wide scale the environment is a type of bank that produces the food, clean water and oxygen that sustain us so the constant degrading of the environment by those who value short term profit over long term sustainability is increasing adverse events. Mt 24:8 describes the events as the beginning of birth pains (NIV) so what we see happening now is going to increase in frequently and intensity which is exactly what reputable climate scientists are telling us also. While it appears that you will need your house to burn down or pollution in your water supply or some other unexpected personal loss before waking up to our danger sensible people worldwide are making responsible decisions and they will not be diverted by your ignorance.
Bob the first. Get real. Tourism isn’t sustainable. Dimwits like you may find spectacles like Meghan Markle touring the Los Angeles fires acceptable and practical, but other factors, including global ones, make prostituting New Zealand an unrealistic basis for our economic future.
Bob the blab Every time that you open your mouth you give credence to Marama’s horrid little meme of ‘ white man bad’. Idiot.
As a spoke may I suggest old chap you stay out of the wheel.
You’ve done it again! If you think that shyster Key, the dwarf from Dipton, or that abhorrent looney Luxon ever cared about you, you’re wrong. They’re laughing all the way to the bank, wee chap.
Ignore the fuckwits comments its just chain pulling waiting for a flush