Posts by Farmer Green
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Hard News: Fact and fantasy, in reply to andin,
That was an obvious one wasn't it. Like nations with no coastlines having a perfect score for fisheries protection.
Still you would want to challenge Jacqueline Rowarth about that figure; what subset of all possible nations was the comparison made against? -
Hard News: Fact and fantasy, in reply to andin,
I can’t say that it is bothering Farmer Green particularly.
Anyway some soundbites from the article:-“lack of societal understanding of what it takes to farm is one of the biggest threats facing NZ agriculture”
“People here are making statements about what our farmers are allowed to do and then buying products from overseas” (She is talking about pork)
’a Lincoln University study showed only 5% of people think that our river and lake water quality is poor, while another 7% think it is not so good, but over 80% in NZ think that it is good and improving”
“Rabobank has just done a rather depressing analysis telling how many dairy farmers are going to go to the wall because of the current payout-and they have revised it from 20% to more like 35%”
’A recent survey showed that about 60% of urban people believed that if the rural sector was doing well, then the urban sector would be better off”
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Hard News: Fact and fantasy, in reply to Rob Stowell,
I apprehend that you may have assumed Farmer Green was a Fonterra supplier. FG is not in a cooperative.
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Hard News: Fact and fantasy, in reply to Matthew Poole,
When in Rome eh? :-) It was hardly Farmer Green’s style was it? It’s not easy when 89% of the population is urbanised; the highest % of any country in the world. (Jacqueline Rowarth in Rural News Dec 4 2012)
FG is slowly learning blog tikanga , including providing the occasional koha to the resident trolls.
The theories are converging on the substance the farmer was putting in the trough. Farmer Green wonders why he was putting anything at all in the trough; it was meant to be full of clean fresh constantly- replenishing water.
Carting water to 600 cows is slightly unusual. -
Hard News: Fact and fantasy, in reply to Rob Stowell,
(There was a moment when I thought Westland Dairy Products might move in the added value direction. This now seems naive :-) )
Similar hopes might once have been held for Synlait, but look what happened to them; now in part- foreign ownership , having suffered because of the fictitious default milk price which according to the Commerce Commission "is not inconsistent with the provisions" embedded in the DIRA.
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Hard News: Fact and fantasy, in reply to Rob Stowell,
Sorry, it wasn’t clear; I meant their plan was to buy an existing NZ dairy business with a brand and expand manufacturing within NZ, possibly by redesigning some of the 16 farms that they already own here. That might open Fonterra’s eyes. But possibly not , if Fonterra had previously turned down the same opportunity.
Yes they would be starting small but the growth prospect is very attractive.
The dairy company that seemed most likely to diversify into added-value was the TUI Dairy company but it was one of the early victims of the quest for monopoly.
That’s history.
One of Fonterra’s first moves was to kick FG out, although he did argue at the time that it could have been the beginnings of something better. . . -
Hard News: Fact and fantasy, in reply to Kyle Matthews,
' I just said that any claim that the only person who knew what could improve this situation on an individual farm was the farmer, is patently nonsense.'
Of course ; that perhaps is what you meant, but it is not what you said. here’s your words:-
“The idea that only person that can say what needs to be done is the farmer”.
Only the farmer could implement the plan for his own property - “what needs to be done ” i.e the specific actions.It would take 5 years minimum to implement the required changes on-farm. And viability has to be maintained throughout the transition. Definitely not a job for an outsider; a farm advisor could monitor progress and act as a sounding board perhaps, but the usefulness of his input would depend upon his knowledge of the individual property. Farms are not factories , in spite of the efforts of many to make them so.
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Hard News: Fact and fantasy, in reply to Rob Stowell,
But if they are going to lead the way and NZ investment follows? Maybe that isn’t so bad.
So if Shangai Pengxin approached FG with a view to buying the brand and expanding the business, and repatriating say 50% of the profits, then you would say go for it?
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Hard News: Fact and fantasy, in reply to Rob Stowell,
Added -value milk powder? Yeah right! It's not doing much for the Fonterra payout.
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" Definitely a road worth trying."
Do you think that we should leave it to Shanghai Pengxin to have a go?
It seems to be their strategy.