Farming

Ele Ludemann raises a good point at Homepaddock.

Why is the state still farming?

The nationwide drought has reduced Landcorp’s earnings by $12.3 million.

The company would break even for the year, though a change in the weather could alter that, chief executive Chris Kelly said yesterday.

However, the Government’s expectation of a year-end dividend would not be met. . . .

Landcorp is an SOE with about $1.6 billion of assets yet won’t be paying a dividend.

Why is the state still farming?

The company shouldn’t be sold as a whole but it should gradually sell its 122 farms and free up the capital for use in other assets which are core government business.  Read more »

Bluefin tuna are being caught faster than they can reproduce, which is terrible news for bluefin tuna and people who like to eat them (but seriously for the tuna).  These fish are awesome, and I didn’t know farming tuna was possible, but it is, with a few caveats.  Bluefin in captivity don’t procreate unless they’re shot with a hormone-tipped spear gun (really).   Also, the fish the bluefin are fed still have to come from somewhere, so calling farm raised fish sustainable is something of a misnomer.  More sustainable though.  – via Kottke

The Farmer and The Bluefin from The Perennial Plate on Vimeo.

The socialist Minister of Agriculture David Carter has been telling fibs about the One Plan Decision. He has claimed  that the One Plan Decision will cause on farm costs to rise between 22-43%. He has been peddling some dodgy research that was not held up by the Environment Court.

This is bullshit, and farmer and chair of Horizons, Bruce Gordon, has issued the following statement.

Having been issued a copy of the report (Evaluation of the impact of different water policy options for managing water quality limits) this week, council chairman Bruce Gordon said the report analyses different policy scenarios in the Manawatu Catchment – none of which reflect the decisions made by the Environment Court in relation to the One Plan or outcomes sought through the One Plan.

“Landcare has indicated that none of the eight policy scenarios evaluated in the report for the Manawatu are comparable with the One Plan as decided by the Environment Court.

The real numbers that David Carter cant seem to find are:

“In fact, the 43 per cent scenario highlighted in the media in terms of impact on profit bears no relationship to the context of the One Plan. I understand the scenario that comes closest to the One Plan shows an impact on profitability of less than 1 per cent.”

Mr Gordon said that this type of misinformation was extremely disappointing and caused unnecessary distress on the farming community.

David Carter needs to look at his officials that have allowed him to mislead the media, farmers and the public with shonky numbers. He should also be mindful that people who pretend to want to be Speaker need to be above reproach and telling fibs won’t help that.

David Carter has had a disconnect with the truth. He has been peddling false figures about the One Plan, saying that it will increase farmers costs between 22-43%.

He is either being poorly advised or he is pulling these numbers out of his arse. The Department of Conservation summarises the numbers as follows:

The Court heard evidence on the economic impacts of the plan which indicated the average increase in farm costs of less than 5% but ranging up to 16.6% in some cases. The evidence used by the council was disputed by the primary sectors, who put forward their own evidence however this evidence was not upheld by the court.

It wasn’t upheld by the court because it was bullshit. Bludging farmers having a sook about economics doesn’t mean they are right, and their numbers were considered a joke by peer reviewers, and the Environment Court.

Farmers should realise that just because they have had a historic right to pollute it doesn’t mean they have an enduring right to pollute. They cant screw up our rivers and get away with it like they did in the old days. Their need to internalise the cost they are imposing on society as a free right to pollute is just a dirty big subsidy and subsidised business are unviable.

Farmers should stop saying “we are farmers, aren’t we great” and start saying “we are businesses and we have obligations like every other business in the country”. If they were polluting rivers with a factory they would be getting shut down until they stopped ruining a public good, and would be fined and made to pay for the clean up.

The Greens and Labour should be holding David Carter to account for his fibs. If his department or Federated Farmers are putting up numbers that are bullshit it is a free hit on Carter and they should be hitting him hard and often. Ministers need to base statements on fact, not stuff someone pulled out their arse to justify polluting our rivers.

Some people don’t like me calling Farmers bludgers.

I think the bludgers comment stinks.

I am a farmer, I have a water take consent and i pay that account (non Dairy). I pay a large wad of tax which partly ends up supporting some dope smokin waste of space on the countries tit…how did i get labelled a bludger in comparison to “true” bludgers??

The comment shows poor form- it is a generalisation which pisses me off.

All bludging is evil, but some bludgers should know better. I’d assume that this commenter is going to actively oppose state funded irrigation schemes which are the biggest bludge going on at the moment, way bigger than any other form of corporate welfare.

This blog believes in airing contrary points of view. Reasoned 400 word commentaries on why farmers are the backbone of the economy, not a pack of bludgers, would be welcome. They will be published unedited but with comment.

The Herald has an editorial that goes on about how we can’t swim in our rivers because farmers are polluting the hell out of them.

It is appalling that so many of our rivers are not clean enough for swimming. The Ministry of the Environment has found the water quality at more than half the recreational spots it monitors to be poor or very poor. A further 28 per cent were fair, which carried a risk of illness for anyone swimming there.

The Herald has got it right. Farmers will have to bear the cost of making water fit for our kids to swim in. They are the ones polluting the water, and they are the ones who should stop the pollution and pay for the clean up, not the rest of us.

Farmers moaning is just what we expect, so we can expect a concerted moan about how farmers won’t be profitable if they aren’t allowed to keep getting free water and keep polluting our water ways. They should be told firmly to piss off, because we are not a socialist country and we don’t believe in subsidies.

Polluting our waterways is just a form of subsidy for a pack of bludgers. Letting them have a public good, water, free of charge, to make a private profit, is another form of bludging.

Farmers should stop bludging and New Zealand should stop propping up bludging businesses that can’t sustain themselves if they are forced to pay the true costs of doing business. And Farmers also should stop moaning because you are about as sanctimonious as the Greens.

A correction of the SST wonky charts at Stats Chat:

I don’t recall Labour or the Greens or Winston Peters protesting all those land sales to Americans, Canadians, Israelis, Swiss, or Italians….but boy have they carped on about sales to Chinese investors.

The numbers just don’t support their worry, even when you add in the Westpac Farms formerly owned by the Crafar family.

We all want clean rivers, no argument there, but the Green’s plan for charging is fiscally unsustainable:

Alexandra-based Ibbotson Cooney accountant George Collier said the Greens’ policy was “crazy”, while Central Otago Mayor and irrigation scheme manager Tony Lepper described it as “a joke”.

Green Party co-leader Russel Norman launched the three-part policy, aimed at cleaning up the country’s rivers and lakes, on Sunday.

A “fair charge” for irrigation water would cut the overuse of water, he said.

A charge of 10c per 1000 litres would raise $370 million-$570 million a year, which would be used to support river clean-up projects.

Mr Lepper is manager of the Earnscleugh Irrigation Scheme, one of about a dozen irrigation schemes in Central Otago.

The Earnscleugh scheme supplies 110 landowners and covers 1100ha. Irrigators are charged about $51 per hectare a year.

“With the addition of other small charges, our income is $65,000 per annum, and with this we run a fantastic co-operative irrigation scheme that is of tremendous benefit to the Central Otago economy,” he said.

“Under the Greens’ new policy and proposed rate of 10c per 1000 litres, we would have to fund an additional $1.76 million a year, from our landowners.

“You do not have to be a genius to work out what this would do to the viability of our local horticulture and farming businesses.”

Mr Collier said a charge for irrigation water would effectively shut down irrigation schemes except for the odd dairy operation.

“Boosting the unemployment rate would be one significant end result of that particular policy.”

So most horticulture and farming businesses except for the ones that the Green’s are really after would disappear. The Green’s hate dairying and yet their policy is only affordable by dairy farmers to the exclusion of all others. Way to go Greens!

I think the Greens actually want all farms to go out of business. It is part of their great leap backwards plan for society.

As Cactus Kate has pointed out repeatedly Farmers paying no tax. Obviously Stuart Nash has been reading up on this and decided to go after the real bludging classes of New Zealand.

The average dairy farmer is paying less tax than a couple on the pension – raising questions about whether the sector touted as the backbone of the economy is paying its fair share.

As the Government prepares one of the tightest Budgets in recent years, cutting into middle-class family benefits and KiwiSaver subsidies, new figures suggest those cuts will hit people who are also shouldering the greatest tax burden – wage and salary earners.

Inland Revenue Department figures provided to Labour revenue spokesman Stuart Nash show that, in the latest full year for which figures were available, the average tax paid by dairy farms was $1506 a year. The 17,244 registered as being in the dairy sector, including companies, trusts and individuals, paid only $26m in tax.

The figures also show that more than half – 9014 – reported a loss for the 2009 year and another 2635 reported trading income of between $1 and $20,000.

This is a major hit for an up and coming Labour MP. An issue that matters, and for follows of global politics a straight copy of the Uk Uncut protests that are railing against corporates dodging tax while the state sector is being cut. The Farming sector are really corporate bludgers. If it rains they want hand outs, if it snows the hands come out, when prices are low they cry poor and when prices are at a record high they structure their affairs to appear to be paupers. Meanwhile they fill our rivers with cowshit and expect to get water for free. These things matter and still Labour pursues helicopter trips and painting of historic buildings as their important issues. It is refreshing that Stuart Nash has stayed about the gutter and done something useful for a List MP.

This highlights one of the major problems for Labour. They have old battle scarred once were warriors like Mallard and Hodgson who are so far past their used by date they have been practically eaten away by maggots. Yet they are setting the strategy, talking about really dumb stuff like BMWs, painting and other irrelevant things. They have yet to get a hit on National on anything that really matters.

This must be intensely frustrating for the very competent up and comers like Nash, Roberston, Adern, Chauvel and Curran. Old timers associated with the failed policies of the Helen Clark regime are still around, and the stench of death pervades Goff, King, Mallard, Hodgson, Dalziel and Street.

Labour’s fortunes won’t improve until they clean out the front bench and put some competent new people in to replace the irrelevant old timers.

Natural Dairy got the flick from the OIO and the minister in charge, but at the same time as Winston, and all the pinkos were frothing about Chinese investment in farms the Germans bought the farm/s. Well not the Crafar farms but certainly a whole lot of farms.

German investors have splashed out more than $100 million in a month buying thousands of hectares of dairying land in the South Island.

The Overseas Investment Office published its decisions yesterday on the sale of sensitive farmland during December. In the middle of the same month that it approved 3314 hectares of dairy and dairy-conversion land for sale to German buyers, the office was directed by Finance Minister Bill English to start using two new tests with “high relative importance”.

However, the tests took effect only from January 13, and would not have affected many of the latest sales because they involved blocks of less than 1720ha.

Together, the assets amount to just under half the size and value of the 16 Crafar farms in the North Island, which are under offer from a Shanghai conglomerate.

It seems that we have institutional racism when it comes to overseas investment and hysterical sensationalist reporting by the MSM to go with it. Chinese money isn’t good enough but Kraut loot is just fine.

Bill Ralston should get a hot german fraulein to front Natural Dairy and break down the purchases into smaller lots, then there should be no problem whatsoever.

In the meantime could we please have some sensible discussion over investment by foreign nationals without resort to xenophobic tosh.