Agsafe Weekly Rural Report

Finance: The NZ dollar eased again over the week following last weeks disastrous financial results. Businesses are hurting & the government’s report card was not good. Brent Crude is moving around below the $US70/barrel - currently $US66.70.
Wool: Wool prices are still at an unsustainable level. Price are up at the latest sales with some renewed interest out of China.
Beef, Sheep & Venison schedules: The meat schedules are trending upwards as spring comes along. Lamb and venison have now cracked the $10/kg barrier and beef schedules are continuing to trend upwards with strong demand for red meat.
Dairy Prices. Fonterra has announced its 2024/2025 results with a final FGMP of $10.16/kg ms, already paid $9.75/kg ms leaving $0.41/kg ms to pay. The final dividend of $0.57/share. There has been an interim dividend paid of $0.22 so there is a final payment of $0.35/share. It is a good result & a $7.50 interim payment on September’s production there will be some big payments made.

Voting in the Local Body elections is extremely important. See the rant below and the nonsense that needs to be stopped. Environment Canterbury is not alone. Regional Councils and Local Councils need people who understand farming and production systems and introduce rules that facilitate economic growth. We don’t need Māori wards, we need the best people from the community.

You can hear us live on the radio on Monday morning at 7.35 am with Brian Kelly on Country Sport Breakfast – Radio NZ Gold AM. 792 AM in the Waikato & 1332 AM in Auckland.

Jim’s Weekly Rant:

There have been some interesting reports on the Clark Family in Canterbury applying for resource consent’s to continue their farming business. The reality of the nonsensical administrative over-reach was exposed as they opened their own farming situation for the public to see. The requirements in Environment Canterbury might have appeared ridiculous to others reading the report, however the Regional Councils rules and regulation in Southland and Horizons-Manawatu are not much different and the Plan Change 1 in the Waikato region is following along the same lines. The cost and process of receiving consents to continue with a farming activity that has operated successfully for a number of years is a nonsense and shows how broken the RMA has become. The Clark’s, despite an A-grade environmental audit, are meeting all targets, and 17 years of compliance, are now facing major challenges over administrative requirements. And I have in front of me a breakdown of an invoice from the Waikato Regional Council (WRC) setting out their cost recovery schedule for a client’s resource consent renewal and the processing of the application, the bill is over $9,000 with charges as low as $28.75 for unspecified administration to $2,415 for unknown technical advice to renew an existing/ prior consent and there is no certainty it will be renewed. The Clark family have estimated their costs to exceed $50,000 without certainty of being able to continue with their farming business. The Clarks, and other’s experiences, reinforces the reasons why RMA reform is crucial and urgent. Councils were given very clear signals about proposed changes by the coalition government and it's concerning to see ratepayers' money being blatantly wasted on processes that may soon be unnecessary. We need regulatory systems that support our farming communities while protecting our environment. Regional Council processing of consent applications is getting more litigious and adversarial while at the same time a cabinet minister has told councils they need to acknowledge the RMA is changing and the Council are encouraged to use common sense and pragmatism while the changes are being made, but we have a problem as changes to the legislation take too long. And this is how absurd the Clark’s situation is: ECan requires Clark to dissect his Overseer and Farm Environment Plan line by line, relitigate 2009 baseline soil data, and model two different sets of rules for the council as their farm has been found to straddle two nutrient management zones. The two zones would limit the area of winter feed on each block and lock the Clark’s into lengthy return periods of specialist vegetable seed crops rather than a flexible farming system. An ECan official told Clark the consent application renewal process could become a publicly notified hearing when all he was doing was seeking to renew a Land Use Consent issued in 2017 that had A-Grade audit reports in the interim. The culture of the organization is often driven by activist urban elected councilors who are driven by ideology and not reason and this is one of the reasons you must vote this week and be responsible with your voting. All the regional Plans rely on nutrient data from Overseer, which Clark says struggles to handle multiple arable crops with different growing patterns. Overseer was never developed to be an environmental modelling program in spite of the Courts recommended reliance on it. All farming plans that rely on Overseer will struggle to have integrity if challenged and similarly land use boundaries crossing a farm unit create unnecessary administrative challenges. We need the Government to move with speed to replace the RMA and WE ALL need to become familiar with the proposed Bill that we understand is nearly due for its first reading in Parliament. It is an extremely important piece of legislation and we all must understand it. The existing systems whether in the Waikato, Manawatu, Canterbury or Southland must be changed, and quickly.