“With interest rates and on farm inflation having turned a corner, farmers continue to innovate and boost productivity while working to meet environmental obligations.
“With 80 per cent of all the goods exports coming from the primary sector and more than 350,000 kiwis employed because of rural activity, farming, forestry, and horticulture remains a mainstay of the NZ economic activity.”
Mr McClay says the Government’s ambitious target of doubling exports by value over ten years is an opportunity to work with the primary sector to add value and deliver greater returns at the farm gate.
“The Government has huge respect for our farmers and foresters. We will continue to partner with them to drive down costs, simplify regulations and build trust as we get Wellington out of farming.”
Already we have:
“This Government trusts farmers and will continue to back them to deliver for NZ, Rural communities can be assured that we have the best and most connected team of Ministers from all over New Zealand working hard on delivering for them” Mr McClay says.
Todd McClay is the Minister of Agriculture, Minister of Forestry, Minister for Hunting and Fishing, Minister for Trade, and Associate Minister of Foreign Affairs. He has been the MP for Rotorua since 2008. This article was first published HERE
Mr McClay says the Government’s ambitious target of doubling exports by value over ten years is an opportunity to work with the primary sector to add value and deliver greater returns at the farm gate.
“The Government has huge respect for our farmers and foresters. We will continue to partner with them to drive down costs, simplify regulations and build trust as we get Wellington out of farming.”
Already we have:
- Disbanded He Waka Eke Noa
- Removed Agriculture from the ETS
- Restored common sense to intensive winter grazing and stock exclusion rules
- Committed to rebalancing the hierarchy of obligations for Te Mana o te Wai
- Commenced independent review of biogenic methane
- Launched a select committee inquiry into banking
- Invested more in catchment groups – empowering local decision making
- Tripled investment into Rural Support Trusts
- Introduced pragmatic rules for on-farm water storage
- Established a Pastoral Group for methane reduction
- Begun reforming rules around biotech so farmers can lead the world in innovation
- Introduced legislation to cease the implementation of new SNAs
- Conducted an independent review of the forestry ETS registry cost recovery scheme
- Repealed burdensome Log Traders Legislation
- Restored the export of logs to India
- Increased funding for East Coast debris clean-up
- Started the simplification and reform of farm plans
- Provided significant investment into animal facial eczema research
- Started the process to replace the National policy statement for freshwater management
- Increased the number of RSE places.
“This Government trusts farmers and will continue to back them to deliver for NZ, Rural communities can be assured that we have the best and most connected team of Ministers from all over New Zealand working hard on delivering for them” Mr McClay says.
Todd McClay is the Minister of Agriculture, Minister of Forestry, Minister for Hunting and Fishing, Minister for Trade, and Associate Minister of Foreign Affairs. He has been the MP for Rotorua since 2008. This article was first published HERE
6 comments:
Yeah right!!
Te Mana O Te Wai needs to be stood aside for a decade until a full cost and benefit analysis is completed with emphasis on the cost to rate and taxpayers . In the meantime a simple traffic light system where a compliant effluent scheme is green , orange means higher testing and monitoring and red obviously requires immediate attention to ensure effluent is upgraded before release or mixing into the waterways .
However Todd, your Govt is still committed to the NetZero madness introduced by the last Labour/Green disaster. No public discussion about the elephant in the room. You are quite happy to watch our valuable arable farmland being sold off to local and overseas investors who plant pine forests in the name of carbon farming. These forests remain standing until they eventually fall down poisoning the land where they grow, killing our foreign earnings potential. You also choose to ignore the natural sinks, pasture, native forests and the surrounding ocean.
I thought arable meant being able to be cultivated for crops. Not aware that much of that land has gone into trees for carbon. For one, the price of such land would be far out of reach for any sensible forester. Sounds like you are just another anti pine forests crusader Rob. Oh well, that's the way of the world these days isn't it?
I would remain Anonymous too after making an uninformed comment like that Anonymous at 2.18pm.
An updated Orme & Associates report on land-use change from pastoral farming to large-scale forestry shows the amount of land sold in 2021 soared 66 percent compared to the previous year.
Beef + Lamb New Zealand (B+LNZ) CEO Sam McIvor says the report will be alarming for farmers, rural communities, and wider New Zealanders, who are already concerned about the conversion of food producing sheep and beef land into carbon farming.
“The Orme & Associates report was commissioned by B+LNZ two years ago to track the amount of land purchased for afforestation and taken out of pastoral production. It initially showed more than 52,000ha of land was purchased for forestry interests in 2021,” he says.
“However, the latest revised data shows that figure to be more than 63,000ha, a 66 percent increase on 2020 and up from 7,000ha in 2017.”
Rob, So you are now talking about pastoral farming, not arable? Maybe it is you who are uninformed.
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