Dr Eric Crampton: New Zealand’s creative farming lobby

I am kicking myself that we at the Initiative had not read Federated Farmers’ submission to the Banking inquiry before drafting our own.

Their submission exhibits a creativity that I had thought New Zealand had lost decades ago – sometime around 1987, if we had to pin a date on it.

Before 1987, the government provided subsidised loans to farmers. That support ended, along with a host of other subsidies.