Hi people. It is the end of the year. My, where did the last one go. The later part of 2017 has been difficult, the move did not go smoothly, the swamp we bought quickly turned to desert, and I mean a desert. The local dairy unites are in strife feed wise, having dried off significant no’s. The veggie growers have also had their problems which of course lead to increased prices for our veggie’s. I think I may have put my foot in my mouth with regards to a comment I made to the concrete contractor we had at that time. He was bemoaning the price of pumpkins in Auckland. $28 he said. Now I did not bother to ask whether he thought the grower was creaming the market or he realized that the weather was to blame. I just launched into a comment about “Good job. It is about time our urban cousins got hit in the pocket with high food prices. Might wake them up and realise that the worlds population is unsustainable with regard as to how they treat the producers of food”.
He laid the concrete and buggered off with out telling anybody it had to be watered regularly to stop it drying to quick.
At this point I must correct a error in last months post. The henacky referred to was in the “Duck Pond” which was next to the Effluent pond. Sorry for that.
I have just got off the phone from talking to my friend up Auckland way. Ex Dairy farmer. Sold and put the money in the bank. He is looking to re enter the market for a bigger unite. And has been active at auctions. I asked him where the market was at given the Environment Waikato Plan. Mike he said the market for the smaller unite is back 20%. Most bigger unites are sitting pat and there has been a marked reduction in farms sold. One property they liked made moon money, with 2 neighboring farmers slugging it out. My friend and his wife have become experts on the in’s and outs of the plan. They have found it hard to get info relating to the N reference point on most property’s looked at as the vendors are not devolving it. He was shocked to realise that most dairy farmers have no idea of the impact the plan will have on their profitability, and thus the value of their investment. A 80 year plan with the final end N limit of Zero. Do you think that is realistic? Before I started this post I re read a old post and the one with the most hits on it. Titled Land Fills and Chemical dumps dated July 29th 2010. A good re read. Overly restrictive rules and regulations adding cost and destroying wealth. Another good read that I have noted in this blog recently is report no 17-143 Strategy and Policy Committee 9 August 2017 Horizons Regional Council.Implementation of intensive land-use rules under the one plan. It identifies costs to the Farmer as the biggest issue to implementation, and that the Banks would be unlikely to finance it. Out come. Falling land values as farmers exit and the purchaser gets the bill for.
I have said it before and I will say it again. This has nothing to do with environmental out comes but rather the McGillicuddy Party loonys using Maoridoms cultural concerns to achieve the outcomes desired. Yes that will be change of land use and for much, of course change of ownership. Who will own it. Well within the Māori part of the McGillicuddy of the Party they think it will be Maori. But as I pointed out to 3 members at one of the Waitangi Tribunal Hearings I attended. You guys or the Chinese? Labour will only stop or has appeared to stop overseas investors from certain types of land sales, and certainly not for that land suitable for Trees. You could see that I had hit them right between the eyes. May be we are seeing this coming though now with regard to the above. Well here we go guys. Carbon to a $100 a tonnes by 2030. Emitters from within NZ will need to purchase up to 200 million tonnes by 2030 for NZ to meet its Paris obligation. 200 million tonnes. The cost $20 billion. ( OMF Carbon Report 21/12/17) Oh my god. How on earth will the consumer with stand such a cost. I have used a Australian example in previous post not so long ago. This is pure loony lah lah land stuff, that only the McGullicuddy Party members are capable of pursuing. The out come will be obvious to all but the owners of the carbon, most of whom are likely to be speculators. A Giant Step Backwards. Which of course is the McGillicuddy Party’s Stated Policy. The forest owners will be over the moon which is why they want Govt intervention via Unlawful Regional Plans to force the price of land down. Again I have written of this in a recent post. It will be on a massive scale and is the reason why Govt has deliberately unlawfully used unlawful Regional Plans to achieve this out come. For No District Council would ever pursue such a policy which would see the economic destruction of their agricultural based economy and the seismic shift in population from Rural to City. Imagine the social issues that will occur. They have unlawfully taken the Local and Democratic decision making requirement’s out of the Local Govt Act and thus out of Local Govt and thus entrusted it to out of sight and largely anonymous decision makers hidden in Regional Govt.
Probably the biggest Mc Gullicuddy Party member in recent times would have to be Minister Finlayson. National Govt, (previous). I recently read a interesting Open Letter to The incoming Minister for Treaty Settlements Andrew Little. This is from Dr John Robinson. He recently retired from working in the Treaty Settlement process within the Ministry of Justice, Massy University and Te Puni Kokiri and was concerned with what was transpiring. He states that all efforts in those organizations was to find wrongs, real or imagined, committed by Govt, in an adversial situation to support lawyers in a court of law, making every effort to put the case for a client, and not to prepare and present a case for the Crown nor protect public property and rights. Any information critical of, or opposed to was rejected. There was no effort to understand what the facts were telling us. This became worse under Minister Finlayson. It was evident that his every sympathy was with the claimants. One such example was the $10 million paid to Ngati Toa Rangatira with an apology by the Crown for asserting Law and preventing further bloody raids bringing peace to the region. he celebrates the change of Govt and a end to Finlayson’s time as Minister for Treaty Settlements.( Breaking Views .co.nz 11/12/2017)
The Farming Papers over time come out with the odd article on ways farmers or scientists have discovered to mitigate agricultures foot print on the environment only to be dismissed by Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) ,Fonterra, or the Fertilizer Company’s, whether in part or all. But one has caught my eye and was mooted some years ago but dismissed by MPI. Titled Carbon building goes with the flow. Understanding the ability of soils to absorb carbon from the atmosphere, including that generated by farming activities on the surface of. This could be viewed as a cash budget flow. We are growing a lot of grass thus must be absorbing a lot of carbon dioxide. Thus this could be one way of coping with NZ’s Paris accord commitments? Well well. It was dismissed a few years ago and certainly does not help achieve the outcomes desired by political,green radicle’s and McGillicuddy members. But keeping the consumer/urban voter reasonably happy may just loosen determination a little. Thus you can now see the real reason for all the farmer bashing in the lead up to the general election. I found this in the NZ Farmers Weekly 11/12/2017.pg 25.
I see that Landcorp,recently rebranded Pamu (Maori) has employed Dr Mike (Kill) Joy ,Guy Salmon, Dr Alison Dewes, Dr Tanira Kingi and others of the same ilk to advise it of future land use options. Oh my god. Talk about extravagance and the use or misuse of public monies. Recently you will recall Landcorp developed huge areas of forestry land in the central north Is to dairy. All that is gone, now it will be phasing out of ruminant livestock, down 30% by mid century. Instead Plant based food products, honey, horticulture, mostly berries and forestry. Also rapidly developing ruminant based products of such high values farmers could afford the high costs of off setting (initially) their emissions and ultimately burying those emissions underground? Salmon said work on fresh water quality, nutrient leaching, soil erosion and stream bed sedimentation had significant future costs for agriculture and far reaching implications for land use. Yep there it is guys. Out of our hands .RMA and LGA over ridden. We ,our communities are supposed to determine the degree of environmental degradation we are prepared to accept in order to provide for our health wealth social cultural needs. Yes it is all there. But not according to these turkey’s. (NZ Farmers Weekly 4/12/2017 pg. 3.)
I am sure I read in one of the Farming mag, either the NZ Farmers Weekly, Farmers Weekly or the Rural News that the NZ Property Trust, Rural Equities Chaired by Sir Selwyn Cushing is exiting Agriculture. They have already sold 2 property’s and more are to go. The reason is the uncertainty of future land use bought about by regulatory controls. Overly restrictive Rules and Regulations adding cost and destroying wealth. Yes you have read it all here and in the papers identified. This is real and is happening as I write. I have harped on about this since 2007. It is only this year that people are recognizing the out come, but are still to realise why that out come is sought. The return of Aotaroa to the indigenous peoples recognized as Tangata Whenua. Climate Change and Water Quality are just Vehicles being used to drive the out come sought. It is now being driven by younger Maori, many of European ancestry, full of confidence re Maori Tanga with no thought for the European contribution to their well being. It is their Mana they wish to exert, via sec 6 of the RMA, and the control of the Natural and Physical via their Iwi Strategic Plans. And why would they not when they recognize the help from the such as the Minister of Treaty Affairs that we have had.
A shocker is it not. But more and more people are awakening to the happening. And to what I am writing of.
Will the New Year be a happy one?