Super Farmer-Man ........

It's funny how you make a committment to yourself about something (bit like New year's resolutions I suppose) and life just keeps going on.  You wake up sometime down the track and darn it, you haven't kept up your promise....well I've been back in NZ for over two weeks and my blogg entries have slowed somewhat, until now!

I have continued reflecting on what I have seen and heard on my Nuffield studies overseas.  This has heightened my awarness of what is going on in NZ.   I feel a bit like a movie super hero with super attuned sense of awarness of farmers and their place in NZ society...not the stuff of movies I do admit...imagine it Super Farmer-Man with a cape made from homespun wool that turned even the heaviest rain shower, and my mortal weakness would probably be fresh baked scones with cream and strawberry jam.  Enough rambling!!

It is interesting (disturbing) to see various debates playing out which place farming and the  environment at opposite ends of the spectrum.  It is like the two are polar opposites and that we have to chose between one or the other.  It seems like progress of one can only be made at the expense of the other.  This is not helpful and will limit our ability to move forward as a country.  NZ Farmers should be proud of the quality food we produce from our beautiful environment, however  societies' expectations of farms and food production systems have changed .  The goal posts have shifted and interestingly farm systems have shifted rapidy response also.  What seems to be taking longer to re-adjust is getting our heads in the new space, so we can engage in this new position.  What would Super Farmer-Man do in this situation.


Below a photo of an effluent storage bunker on a UK livestock farm kindly funded 50% by the EU.

The food story is complex....

As I sit in the airport to return home to NZ, and reflect on the learnings of the last while, tereis much to take home.The three main things are:

1. Firstly, the impact of regulation on farmer behaviour in relation to up-take of innovation;
2. secondly the disconnect between consumers and where their food comes from;
3. thirdly, the challenge that confronts NZ farmers to meet the market with their products and the systems that support that production.  

There is an inter-relationship between all these factors and the current trajectory is somewhat discomforting. Consumer perception will drive food and farming regulations, yet, consumer perceptions are increasingly mis-informned about these food systems.  Farmers can continue to take a business-as-usual approach which is somewhat detatched from the consumer concerns about the environmental and social footprint of farming (remember I am talking abour perception being reality, not necessarily the truth of the matter).  It reminds me of the saying "if you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always got".

It's a big challenge but one that must be tackelled or we aren't going to be able to feed 9 Billion people by 2050.

Country of origin is a popular practice for locally based food outlets in the Uk, rather than bigger supermarkets.  Food miles listed on a blackboard next to the various products also appeared around the UK also.

About the only free thing in Rome is the water at the Vatican...

Discussion about water and food are going to be more regular in the future amongst communities 

People don't know their food....

An interseting social challenge which we are observing in NZ and it is impacting agriculture is the disconnect people between and their food.  We have all come accross people with a very poor level of awarness of where milk comes from, how vegetables grow etc.  This is certainly the case here in the UK and moreso.  All of society (and I include rural communities in this) have become disconnected from the source of their food so that there is a crude or nonexistant understanding of the food systems, like how and where does our milk come from  or our cheese, vegetables, seeds, meats and so on.

This is a critical departure because ultimatley these people are the regulators, educators, legislators, consumers and neighbours.  How can people make astute and well considered decisions when there is a poor knowledge about the complexities of the biological sciences which underpin the production of the food we eat.   We have got used to cheap food being readliy available...

Did you know that many of the major political/ civil disobedience  events accross the globe have their roots in food supply issues.

Food is such a core part of our communities; it gives us our nutrition, it gives us our cultural identity, it gives us context in the "circle of life" (I saw Lion King at the West End the other night).  Food security and food safety are dear to poeple's hearts (stomachs) but most people are poorly informed about what the factors are that cause or undermine food safetly and security.

What role does the NZ agricultural industry have to play in this?

What's going on in the UK ag scene

Alot of discussion revolved around the impact/ influence of the subsidy payments system on farmer innovation.  After the conference I set off on a tour of numerous organisations including the UK, Welsh and Scottish Young Farmers, Lantra, Dairy Co, NFU, NFU Mutual, FUW to name a few.  As well as seeking to gain a  clearer understanding of my study topic, I also wanted to get a better understanding of how subsidy payments influence the attitudes of farmers with growing their business and adopting innovation.  

There is a link between the two, infact an inverse relationship, I believe.  In otherwords, the provsion of subsidies seem to reduce the adoption of new ideas and techology.  I pursued a line of questioning to better understand how and why this would be happening.  

To summarise, the impact of the subsidy regime acts against the adootion of innovation in several ways; it maintains the existence of lesser productive and profitable businesses, it makes farm sucession more difficult ot achieve, it breeds a degree of complacency within the farm business, it creates a victim mindset within the farming fraturnity which is counter to self reliance, and it creates production inefficiencies.  As a competitor to the UK red meat industry I am not unhappy about the existence of the subsidy system.  As a fellow farmer it saddens me.

Below are a gethering of local agri-professions who are setting up a hub of professional contacts in Shropshire.

Single Farm Payment

Ian Piggot explains the biodiversity ojectives  within the Single Farm Payment system.

The Conference winds up...

Our Nuffield Conference concluded with a vistit to a cropping farm at Luton where they have diversified their business by converting their old stables into a business park.  A number of offices have been established with tenants renting office space.  This was possible because the location is relatively close to London and there is a ready demand for office space in a country setting.

We also had a farm walk and discussed GAP reforms, farm subsidies and their impact in the operation of a farm business.  We discussed the principals behind the GAP reforms through enhanced biodiversity and environmental requirements on farm business.The payment is somewhere to the order of $200 NZD per acre.

I found it interesting as there is increasing expectations on NZ farmers and some of the societal expectations are growing toward where the UK currently is.  It seems a relatively simple argeument that farmers are 'compensated' by the tax payer for the extra expectations and inconvenience to their business brought on by society.  This is achieved through a process called the Single Farm Payment.  An issue for the future facing NZ farmers could be that the expections of the general public seem to be growing toward those in the UK, but I cannot possibly imagine the NZ public developing an apetite for 'compensating' farmers for the impact of these practices on the farm business.

There is a middle ground here where we, as farmers, need to be more aware and proactive about the whole impact of our business (ecomomic, social and environmental) and society needs to recognise that placing expectations (aesetic, social etc) on a business can bring a cost which needs to be met someway. If it is a societal expectation then surely it is a societal cost. Interesting...