24 October 2011

Labour shows poor grasp of agricultural issues

Labour’s water policy completes a hat trick of ill conceived policy releases over the past week, highlighting a poor grasp of agricultural issues and a worrying anti-farming streak.

“The worst aspects of Labour’s proposals around water management are they are pre-empting the Land and Water Forum’s nutrient management and water allocation recommendations whilst imposing punitive taxes on a small but dynamic part of the agriculture sector ,” says Ian Mackenzie, Federated Farmers national board water spokesperson.

“They want to replace the current allocation regime with a pick the winner model which fails to acknowledge that water and land as a package already moves to the highest value use and that the current allocation model may not be as broken as some would suggest.

“The policy’s nutrient management plan is formed around anti-dairy farming principles rather than sensibly addressing water quality issues. The water quality policy also fails to acknowledge urban New Zealand’s significant contribution to water pollution.

“Also, picking on urea as the root of all water quality evils shows Labours’ science advisors have yet to pass agronomy 101. Again it is anti-farming, being perversely weighted against our horticultural and arable industries and would not deliver any positive environmental gains and could encourage more movement to dairying.

“Resource rentals are just another word for tax and despite Labour’s claims these would drive water use efficiency, punitive taxes don’t usually drive behavioural change, especially where there are no alternatives. Reverting to dryland sheep farming from dairying on the Canterbury plains would destroy Canterbury’s economy. Labour also fails to acknowledge the millions of dollars farmers are already investing in technology to drive water use and nutrient use efficiency.

“The only points I can agree with are; agriculture has to sort out its share of the water quality issues New Zealand faces; water is and should remain a public good; and allocation models based on market economic instruments have severe flaws.

“However, this policy proposes no sensible solutions to those issues and is likely to produce perverse outcomes,” Mr Mackenzie concluded.

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