Move over Barrack Obama

I couldn't resist adding these photos to my blog....

California goodbye

 A few closing comments on California to wrap up.  I tweeted actively during the week so check out my tweets if you want to see more on California  - @richardfitzger6 - but see below my close and brave brush with a snake.  When my Australian collegues were sceaming like school girls, I moved in close for the money shot.   Not bad for a Kiwi

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 Harmony with nature is  theme I picked up in California (as I also did in South Korea late last year).  As food producers we need to find the sweet spot for our food, land and climate and work with them rather than against.  I am pleased to say we are underway with a reasonably large biodiversity programme om our farm in NZ.  Just as in the photo below at a Californian training farm, looking at a farming enterprise more widely than inputs and outputs is very important.  What is the impact of our business socially, environmentally and financially, and how does this occur proactively.  How do our businesses contribute positively, not just minimise our impact

California - fantastic food and great people

 We enjoyed great Californian hospitality and saw some amazing farm systems.  No doubt interest is skewed to organic systems.  Water and government regulations were the main topics of discussion.  It is going to be a challenging place to produce food in the future as urban demands on natural resources compete with farming interests.  Water, land, synthetic input use, expectations from food consumers influenced by poor understanding of farm and food systems. More stringent and demanding regulations  Sound farmiliar??

We were hosted by some wonderful people who are trying to make a go of farming in an increasingly tougher business environment.  It intrigues me that farm people mostly want to grow food, look after their stock and land well, and keep to themselves.  This is becoming harder to do and I heard and saw this clearly in California.

I have laboured the 'contradictions' we have seen in China and the US.  And again more contradictions.  Developed countries can look at less intense food systems such as organic farming and push back on GMO, but we will still need to feed 9 Billion people in 2050 on less land with less water.  I don't think we have the luxury to keep this line on a global scale.

Farewell to China - the final flashback

In the final leg of our China GFC and found ourselves in Beijing.

Visiting Tiananmen Square was quite moving. All the Nuffield team clearly recall the dramatic pictures of the tank and the defiant protestors; it was surreal to think that was the place it all happened. Surveylance cameras sat on the surrounding rooftops making them look like prickly hedgehogs and security personnel were prominent. I guess the Tiananmen Square represents western view of the struggle for freedom of speech in China. 

Interestingly, we spoke to a twenty three year old Chinese expat who had returned briefly to China. They knew nothing about the political unrest in Tiananmen Square until they travelled overseas recently. Right next to the Square there is the Forbidden City, an ancient fortress that speaks of the former glory days of previous Chinese Emperors and Dynasties. The City itself was build around the time that William and his invading Norman army won the Battle of Hastings. It is beautiful and impressive.

Speaking of impressive, we travelled to the Great Wall. It is hard to describe how magnificent it is; words do not do it justice. It is 21,000kms long with guard towers regularly dotted along the way, weaving and winding up steep mountain sides and along ridge lines. All I could think is that the Mongols must have been pretty bad neighbours to go to that extent to shut them out.

The next day we left for USA. China was fun, challenging, interesting, inspiring, frustrating and confusing. It didn't disappoint.

Porky Torky: Memories Of China

Porky Torky: Memories Of China: Have a look at a few short minutes from the Chinese leg of the Nuffield global focus.

Flashback - China needs people with skills

China's agricultural production is increasing dramatically and often, they are using cutting edge technology to help them.

We visited a tissue culture laboratory developing new potato strains, a 10,000ha vegetable farm with incredible computerised logistics systems, a state of the art milk processing plant, a cashmere mill using goat and camel fibre to produce high end knitware and duvets, to name a few places.

 China is investing heavily in infrastructure and there are some impressive farming operations however their farm performance, once you drilled down a bit, left something to be desired. The big gap that I saw is in the management capability area. There are plenty of workers and there are pretty advanced corporate management structures, but the interface between the two is lacking. This will take quite some time to address and offers an opportunity for NZ and our farm management expertise. China has many mouths to feed and people to clothe.

I don't see them being a threat as a agricultural exporter in the foreseeable future. In fact, there is a forecast labour shortage as the "One Child" policy works through the age brackets and China will soon become an aging population.

Buy local focus in California

We have visited a number of farm types in a busy schedule around central California.  There is alot of focus on the buy local story though one grower made an interesting comment that 'buy local' trumps 'organic' produce.

We had a long discussion about this and the consensus about both organic and buy local is about the flavour of the food; the freshness.  My view is that the organic supply chain tend to be shorter than conventional supply chains and therefor tend to be fresher and more flavoursome.

The conventional chains source fresh produce and fruit well before it is fully ripe in order to freight and have it on the shelf when it is ripe but this can be at the expense of the flavour; this is why we all like home grown food.  There are a number of lessons and opportunities in this.