What Help is Out There

Winton Dalley discusses assistance for food fibre producers.

The indiscriminate and ill-advised use of the terms resilient, sustainability, and viability, in relation to Agriculture, risk negative and counterproductive reactions, especially if those concepts come from the wrong quarter and are accompanied by punitive and unworkable policies, rules, and regulations, rather, these terms should be used to engender the idea of positive change, and of opportunity.

From its early days NZ Agriculture has been a leader in innovation, adapting to change, an early and eager adopter of technology, and improved management skills.

Change adoption, and adaption have always been key factors in NZ Primary Producers being world leaders in Food and Fibre production, and achieving that with arguably the lowest environmental and carbon foot print in the world.

What Food and Fibre producers will respond to are sensible policy settings and the availability of a range of practical tools to assist them with predicting and planning for adverse natural events, and tools to inform potential land use and management change, to more sustainable and viable practices, in response to sensible regulatory requirements.

Over the last few months, and in response to a series of natural disasters during the last ten years, and in the face of unprecedented regulatory change, as Chair of the Canterbury Rural Advisory Group, and the Hurunui Adverse Events Group, I have been in discussion with MPI and other Ag sector groups around ways to assist our Agricultural Primary Producers to become more self-reliant, and resilient to these events.

Adverse natural disaster events are normal occurrences, and have been throughout this country’s Agricultural history, but If it is accepted that the increased frequency and intensity of these natural disasters is a reality, then it must be preferable that we are not in a continual state of reliance on disaster ‘Declarations’ and State financial support for adverse events.

Some preliminary work is underway to identify ways to pull these threads together in Canterbury, and to develop a useful’ tool box,’ drawing on some excellent existing work and information, and filling any identified gaps.

One such tool is the Hawkes Bay ‘drought predictor’ app. this was developed by the HB RAG and HB Regional Council. It provides a ‘traffic light warning system’ for drought, based on data from local climate stations to support farmers to make decisions early and plan for drought. Its constraint is that it only draws on real time and historic data.

Recently, the Agriculture Minister announced joint funding with NIWA for a drought ‘forecasting tool’ project.

This forecasting tool will predict 35 days out, and potentially be developed to predict out to six months.

This model is intended to predict to a relatively local level, giving more certainty and decision making ability on farm.

From experience, we know that early decisions around de-stocking, and/or acquiring extra feed are much more successful and less stressful strategies than the wait and see approach. A reliable drought prediction will be invaluable making these difficult decisions and reducing unnecessary stress.

Drought is not the only event which calls for resilience planning, but with some part of the country having been suffering ‘Drought’ almost continuously during the last ten years, it is a good place to start.

All Food and fibre Producers are facing unprecedented pressure to change and adapt, both by a tsunami of regulation, and by challenging climate patterns, I trust that our Industry can work together to assist Producers to meet these challenges.

Written by
Winton Dalley