The work by the national body in recent times arguably has had little direct impact on the policy decisions of central government relevant to land management of HEHC. The influence of the national body has been at a broader level in contributing (not always positively) to the public and national-level debate on sustainability and agriculture, the impact of agriculture on New
Zealand’s natural environment, and the role farmers should have in contributing to the environmental costs of agriculture.
Offsetting or balancing the environmental implications of agricultural productivity with the economic advantages has been a core and highly publicised mantra for the Federation over the past decade as well as the demand to minimise the cost to farmers for the environmental impact of agriculture on the environment. The previous and particularly publicly contentious president of Federated Farmers, Charlie Pedersen, is quoted in an article in the NZ Herald as saying:
‘We understand there are some areas of farming where we need to work harder to reduce the depth of the environmental footprint but reducing productivity was not
socially acceptable in a country where the standard of living depends on agriculture’s
continued success’ (Ward, 2006).
In the Federation’s General Election Manifesto written for the incoming government before the
2008 elections, agriculture was highlighted as the ‘sustainable backbone of the New Zealand economy’ (Federated Farmers of New Zealand (Inc), 2008, p. 3).The significant contribution of agriculture to the economy was detailed and the commitment of New Zealand farmers to their environmental obligations emphasised.
In that document the Federation defined sustainability as:
the unity of positive environmental management with economic reality. The two are not mutually exclusive yet the concept of sustainability is increasingly skewed away from taking economic considerations into account (Federated Farmers of New Zealand (Inc), 2008, p. 34).
This continues to be a strong theme that pervades the Federation’s responses to and demands of central government and local government policy development. The approach of the national body after 2009 is more conciliatory than during Charlie Pedersen’s presidency, but the
principles underpinning the Federation’s approach remain the same39. Their approach is evident in the following extract from an article written by the then national president of Federated Farmers, Don Nicholson in the Federation’s magazine:
Sustainability ought to be a farming word but we’ve seen it hijacked by consultants and special interest groups who don’t create anything but distrust and disharmony.
Sustainability has now become an environmental word. The problem is everyone
forgets that if you cannot afford to do something, it’s not sustainable. Economic
viability is integral to sustainability (Nicholson, 2009).
39 On 1 July 2011, Bruce Wills was elected as National President of Federated Farmers NZ. With his
presidency the approach of the Federation to the environment and to its engagement with central government has changed markedly. The Federation’s approach is now more constructive and less confrontational, although the exploration of this shift in approach is beyond the scope of the research.
A history of conflict foreshadows the Federation’s current stance on the environment. The so
called ‘Fart Tax’ campaign, an anagram for Fight Against Ridiculous Taxes, instigated by the Federation in response to the Labour-led Government’s proposed tax on methane emissions
from livestock was a significant success from the Federation’s perspective. In 2003, following the ratification of the Kyoto Protocol, farmers were offered by the then Labour-led Government what Jim Sutton, the Minister of Agriculture at the time, described as ‘the deal of the century’ (Sutton interview 2008). The deal exempted farmers from the full cost implications of
greenhouse gas emissions, and instead the government proposed a nominal tax on farmers that would help fund research into reducing livestock emissions.
The proposed tax rankled many farmers, and the Federation responded and built on the
opposition among the farming community. The Federation mobilised protests by farmers around the country. A petition opposing the emissions-tax attracted 65 000 signatures from across New Zealand. By October that year the government abandoned its plan to levy farmers for emissions research, obtaining the money for research from other players in the sector. The government’s back-down was taken as ‘a fantastic victory for farmers’ by Federated Farmers of New Zealand (TVNZ, 2006a, n.p.).
Support for the Federation’s actions and approach was not universal among farmer members or farmers in general. A provincial president of the Federation expressed disappointment at the
national body’s ‘red neck’ response:
We might think we run the country but we don’t …Yeah, we have got a lot of red necks in Feds, unfortunately, that think ...the country owes us a living and I’ll do what I like
but actually a lot of farmers don’t think like that and we are being led by too many red
necks (Phillips interview 2008).
The Federation has also been consistent in its strong opposition to any form of regulation, imposed costs or direct central government or local government interference in the autonomy of farmers to make decisions about their own farm businesses and the management of the farm’s natural resources. Voluntary mechanisms for policy implementation are favoured across the board, including in relation to soil erosion (Federated Farmers of New Zealand (Inc), 2007a). The Federation is also strongly opposed publicly to anything that in anyway could be construed as challenging the property rights of individual farmers without fair and adequate compensation (Federated Farmers of New Zealand (Inc), 2008).