Life's too short for regrets....

It as very interesting, we had presentations from Nuffield Scholars too.  Each vastly different but ones which make you sit up and think about what is important about the few short years we have on God's earth.  Just like with the'sucessful' executives who presented to Leadership NZ and lamented their lack of work life balance, so too the same message came through like a stern warning.  Looking back on a sucessful life has less significance without satisfaction in the home sphere.  It is about getting the priorities right.

So too with extreme personal tragedy.  Live each day to its fullest because you don't know when things will change.  Live life with no regrets.

Nuffield is not just about getting input from the outside in but also about looking at what drives you and how that is expressed in your actions....meaty stuff but something that we need to get right, and keep working on it.

Below is a shot of all the Nuffield crew for 2012..not a bad bunch, even the Aussies........

The power isn't with us....

The theme of global trade continued with a presentation on the power base of world trade.  Our presenter highlighted the historical fact that political power is generally connected to political power.  Today it is still the case. The US today is still the seat of political and economic power and even with the rise of economic growth in the East, the vast amount of wealth sits in the US in comparative terms.

Did you know that between 75-90% of all globally traded grain is sold through four companies.

Our presenter then went on to demonstrate an index of five factors which reflect power: political, corporate, economic, natural resources and natural fuels.  The various trading blocks were calculated to establish a power index.  Not surprisingly the US came tops with a power index of 21.5 then came EU 27 with 19.3. Disappointingly Australasia came out with an index of 9.8; second from bottom and pretty much minnows on a world power basis.

I found this interesting as as NZer's (and the Aussies) we view ourselves as having a level of influence on the world stage and as an exporting nation we think we can (or at least hope) that we can influence the price of commodity products.  This isn't the case at all.  Our challenge as food producers is to read global food trends and meet them.  Our future lies in a proactive approach to producing high quality, safe and environmentally responsibly produced food.

Its simple, produce what people see as valuable...

Dr David Brand spoke on Leadership in the Global Food Industry and highlighted the significnace of food retailers.  He provided some staggering figures such as the turnover of WalMart at $425 Billion US running a 3.25% profit margin.  They are a big player!

He also highlighted that the multinationals which have gotten big are ingredient brands or non-food brands rather than food companies.  He noted the reason for this differece is the control that the consumer's personal preference determines whether they buy the product or not.

The most poignent comment Dr David made was that farmers needed to own companies that produce items that the public saw as valuable.

What a venue.....

The London based Institute of Directors set the tone a of a brilliant day.  I first have to describe the building.  As the photo suggests it is rather regal with a number of large paintings in the large foyer areas depicting the Battle of Warterloo and the Battle of Trafalgar.
Both Lord Nelson and the Duke of Wellington are catptured on two huge portrait paintings on the stairway walls and in the main meeting room, there are paintings of all the monarchs of the  Royal  Family, all through history.

It is spectecular and for a New Zealander who knows colonial history of a couple of hundred years, and Maori history not too much longer than, looking at millennia of history is inspiring.

International Trade on the books...

Peter Riely from the NZ High Commission spoke on the global trade situation and filled in the Scholars on the WTO operation and various Bilateral and Free Trade agreements.  It was a fascinating presentation from a NZ perspective because international trade is our lifeblood.

This presentation was prefaced with a summary of the Global economy and in particular the Eurozone by Amber Rabinov from ANZ.  Ther was quite some discussion about the challenges facing Greece and where to from here.  The general tome was that steady as she goes but the worst should be behind us now.  I guess time will be the judge of this.

The day finished off with a cocktail function at the top of NZ House and a short welcome by the High Commissioner and the patron of Nuffield UK, Prince Richard The Duke of Gloucester.  A ten minute discussion with him is my closest experience with royalty and it was very pleasant.

Choice New Zealand Real Estate in Central London

We resumed our programme in New Zealand House, a delightful location in central London overlooking Trafalgar Square. A 360 degree view of London greeted us for the first spell as we were able to take in a breath-taking panorama of busy London.

Our first presentations were  from the Soil Association and GM  Freeze.  These showed view that agricuture needed to take  a more considered approach to food production and that an organic approach would be a more preferable farm system.  This presented a challenging position given the relatively urgent view of global food safety, security and soveriegnty issues which were raised in discussions in Holland.  The paradox between needing to grow more food from less land with fewer inputs was evident within these discussions.

 

The answers to these discussions have been somewhat academic and "arms length" with all parties looking accross the fence at their 'neighbour' to take action

Good Bye to Holland

The Dutch leg of Nuffield wound up and we relocated to London for more inspiring and challenging presentations.

As I leave Holland the two debates in my mind which I am looking for greater understanding during the next few weeks are:
1:  Why does the CAP subsidy environment seem to impact negatively on farmer uptake of innovation.   The discussions with my fellow Scholars and some speakers suggests that subsidies are the antithesis of innovation.  I am unconvinced of this as I cannot see why there should be a direct link between subsidy payments and uptake and adoption of new ideas.
2:  Should New Zealand farmers have a greater stake in the ownership of the value chain.  Some of the discussion during the time in Holland revolved around the performance of cooperatives and the performance of the likes of Fonterra and Freislandia and such.  There are seriously big co op's in Holland which suggest collective ownership of big business is possible if not positive (as argued by the Co operative exectives).  The performance of the co-operatives were questioned by farmer suppliers and there is the ongoing tensions between suppliers and processors whether co operatively owned or fully privately owned.

Silence is golden...

Technology is  wonderful thing....when it works.  A power spike has taken me off the grid for a bit but am back with a vengance.  Watch out for more stuff from me.  I couldn't resist a photo of this place in a small Scottish village, they're soooo practical.

Common Agricultural Policy...

We heard from Herman Snijders from European Agricultural Policy group about the role, purpose and up-coming reform of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).  The challenge is to de-couple the payment system from agricultural production so it is being shifted accross to a 'Single Farm Payment' which is paid, with strings attached.  The policy is creating a  challenging  environment for young people to move into agriculture because it is targetted at land owners rather than those farming the land.

Manageing water run off and drainge is a major challenge for  Dutch Farmers.

It is also intended to try and support specific practices such as land set aside, hedgerow plantings, bio-diversity and so on, rather than being production focussed.  This is interesting given that within NZ there is increasing expectations from NZ society that the farmer should be doing this anyway, and carrying the cost within their businesses.  In Europe the arguement is that if society wants to have the farm land maintained, with certain aestetic values, then society needs to pay for it.  Not something I disagree with really, but not something that would be acceptabe in NZ.

Tour de Holland

A short tour of Holland showed the difference between a NZ and what I woud describe as an industrial landscape...people and traffic everywhere.  The dyke system is impressive and so is the renewable power, in the form of wind turbines.  A number of farmers have wind farms on the property...not a bad idea for home.

Wind farms are commonly owned by farmers who sell the power back to distributors

Flower Power

Talking about big business, we went to the Flora Holland flower (and pot plants) auction.....  To give you a sense of the scale of the business, which by the way is farmer owned, here are a couple of stats: total building footprint = 120ha, annual turnover over 4 Billion Euro (thats roughly $10 Billion NZ dollars, or nearly the size of the whole NZ red meat industry), 600 billion pot plants are sold every year, 12,000 billion flowers are sold there every year.

It is highly automated and in essence a logistics business.  Now I understand what a dutch auction is ...why don't we sell livestock that way?

Below are  couple of photos which show one of the auction rooms in action with three auction clocks running at the same time.   There is also a photo of the shop floor where dozens, if not hundreds of people zoom around on their carts and shift the stock to and from the sales rooms.

If only life were so simple...

 You can trust the Dutch to come up with such  simple, yet effective answers to life's big questions......

The good and bad of it....

It is interesting to see first hand the impact the CAP policies are having on Eurpoean Agriculture.  On one hand there is alot of traditional and conservative farming which is struggling to compete ecomnomically, while there is very impressive innovation and cutting edge technology used in agriculture.

The photos show Koppert Kress, near Rotterdam, which supplies the global trade with fresh salad ingredients.  They utilise LCD lighting and ground stores of energy to heat the water for the Glasshouses.  Over 1 hectare is under glass and the product is supplied all year round.  

It is a commonly held view that subsidies do not encourage innovation.  This is supported by the current success of the pig and horticultural industries, neither of whch are subsidised and are generally doing very well, thankyou.  Meanwhile the traditional farming systems such as dairying are struggling with profitability, and it could easily be argued that maintainence of the subsidy system is good for NZ agricuture.  That one I didn't see coming...

Gotta love the Irish

The scale of industry in Holland is hugely impressive.  A dinner cruise on the harbour in Rotterdam showed us the third largest super freighter in the world and the largest floating crane in the world. It is capable of lifting a combined weight of 14,000 tonnes in the two cranes.  According to the Irish Nuffield contingent, it might even be big enough to to pull New Zealand into the 21st Century.........