Federated Farmers to invite U.S. Senators to New Zealand
Tuesday 23 March 2010, 12:36PM
By Federated Farmers of New Zealand
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Federated Farmers is to invite the 30 U.S. Senators who have expressed scepticism about the proposed Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP), to attend Federated Farmers June National Conference being held in Invercargill.
“I think the biggest thing we can say to the U.S. Senators who have signed this letter is ‘come downunder and see for yourself’,” says Federated Farmers President, Don Nicolson.
“I’m actually optimistic about the TPP because 70 Senators didn’t sign the letter and that tells me President Roosevelt’s great challenge, that the ‘only thing we have to fear is fear itself’, remains true today.
“The proposed Trans Pacific Partnership is about taking the best of the United States and blending that with the best from New Zealand. It’s about optimal outcomes for both countries.
“There’s also a degree of perspective that seems to be missing. Yes Fonterra Cooperative Group is the world’s largest dairy exporter but that amounts to a mere two percent of global milk production.
“Our farmers aren’t in the same dominance league as say Microsoft, Boeing or even Google.
“Fonterra Cooperative Group isn’t some corporate juggernaut but a cooperative comprising 10,000, mainly farming families. It isn’t even the largest cooperative either, as it’s ranked at number 30 by the International Co-operative Alliance.
“There’s actually an agricultural cooperative in the U.S. ranked 17 places higher than Fonterra at number 13. Having large farmer-owned agricultural cooperatives shouldn’t be a new concept to the Senators who’ve put their names to this letter.
“I plan to tell these Senators that with a global population that will grow by some three billion in the next four decades, there are immense opportunities for New Zealand and U.S. dairy farmers. But only if we can get past a fear of tomorrow.
“That’s why we’d like to get the Senators who’ve signed the letter down to Invercargill between 23 and 25 June for Federated Farmers National Conference. We’ll offer to host them with farming families so they can see our fantastic country and farming systems.
“Once they see our farmers in unsubsidised action, I think they will go into November’s U.S. Senate elections with a whole new perspective on the Trans Pacific Partnership,” Mr Nicolson concluded..