Six Dollar Coffee -- April 2018

It makes a nice change to see a coffee chain in Wellington being excoriated on social media for raising the price of a flat white by ten cents in response to the recent increase in the minimum wage, I’m used to seeing dairy farmers get a kicking for everything from the price of butter to the imagined harsh conditions we subject our employees to.

If anything was going to distract people from a $6 block of butter, it was going to be a $6.10 cup of coffee.

 When I started dairying in 1996 I had no idea what the minimum wage was, Google tells me it was $7, and my first job in the Waikato gave me 2 rostered days off per calendar month. This wasn’t necessarily the same two days every month, sometimes it could be the first weekend and then next month it could be the last: working 40 or 50 days straight was by no mean uncommon.

When the farm owner at the time suggested that getting a full day in lieu was a bit generous as I only worked half a day on the public holiday, I readily agreed. I’d given up my $36,000 job in Wellington to move to the outskirts of Hamilton and start again as a dairy farm assistant and I was happy for the opportunity. I was only paying $40 a week rent for a sprawling 4-bedroom house; this meant that despite the $10,000 cut in salary I was better off financially than when I was in Wellington.

Despite the roster I was also happier and healthier than I had been in years, and in my opinion nothing beats watching your kids grow up in the country.

None of this is to say that these practices should persist today, just that they are part of our very recent history and today’s employers are people like me who came up through those systems.

Helen Kelly used to name and shame dairy farmers on Twitter, she would find an ad on the internet and analyse it; time off, hours worked, hourly rate and quite frankly it was embarrassing. Sometimes she was wrong, but most of the time she was exposing some pretty old fashioned employment ideas like annualised hours and value of accommodation as part of the package.

Times have changed very quickly and poor employment practices amongst farmers are becoming less and less common. I noted the increased minimum wage with interest but knew that no action was required on my part as each of my employees earn well in excess of that, and I am writing this column on my regularly rostered 3-day weekend.

Unlike coffee shops, dairy farmers aren’t in the position to pass the costs of production on to consumers. We have to farm smarter and spend our money where it will have the most impact on our profitability. Over the years we’ve come to realise that a happy, stable work force is money well spent, it’s rarely a place to look to for savings.

As for coffee, nothing can beat 2 teaspoons of Nescafe Classic in a travel mug at 4am in the cowshed.

Pick Up The Damned Phone -- March 2018

I was recently enjoying a drink with my wife and my employers at the Ashburton Hotel; we had just finished a fun day at the races courtesy of FarmSource and Ecolab and were contemplating where to head for dinner.

A hand clapped down on my shoulder and a voice boomed in my ear “Craig! Good to see you!” as is wont to happen in a crowded pub. I turned, expressing my pleasure to see them also, only to come face to face with a complete stranger. I’ll be the first to admit I’m not very good with names, but I’ll usually have a nagging feeling that I should know somebody or that I’ve met them before. Not this time.

Luckily for me the gentleman in question had thoroughly availed himself of the hospitality at the races and was having enough trouble remaining upright, let alone wondering why I wasn’t introducing him as my best friend to the others at the table. He knew my name, he knew I had booked annual leave for the next day and he inquired after my children. It wasn’t until he lurched off to the bar that my wife pointed out his parting farewell had been “We really should get a selfie together” that it finally clicked; he follows me on Twitter.

The encounter got me thinking about how much I share online. Despite the fact I’m a fairly prolific tweeter I’m also pretty private, what I do share is generally superficial; you might see what I’m eating or read my views on farming, you’ll see how proud I am of my children and get treated to jokes on every topic under the sun, but you’ll almost never read about things going badly in my life or how I’m feeling.

Plenty of people online share extremely personal things to their followers but that’s not me, either in real life or in the virtual world. It’s something that extends into other aspects of my life; I like to nut things out for myself, I tend to focus inwards and I’m reticent about asking for help. Unfortunately these are all things that can be bad for business.

We haven’t had a flash season on the farm this year, especially coming off the back of three record years, and the shareholders are understandably disappointed.

Some people who know me well online picked up that something was off, I didn’t post as often as I usually do and I was less ready with a joke, more inclined to snap.

I sat down with the farm consultant to review our season to date, and we pinpointed several things that in isolation don’t mean very much, but together they add up to something; we reared the calves ourselves instead of hiring help, we had key staff leave unexpectedly (one to pursue true love, the other because he got an offer he couldn’t refuse), we had trouble finding good replacement staff (we didn’t have a full complement until Christmas)and when I did find good staff I told them what to do instead of why we do things because it was expedient.

These things all meant I was focusing on the wrong area, I turned in and tried to solve problems rather than reaching out and asking for help. I didn’t share.

I didn’t focus on the single biggest driver of our production; hitting a 1600kg residual, instead I focused on trying to solve problems by myself. And it shows.

None of this means I’ll be any more inclined to share online when things aren’t going well, that’s just not me, but it does mean I’ve learned my lesson; that you can’t coast on previous successes and that if support is only a phone call away you should pick up the damned phone.

A Government Department In My Pocket -- January 2018

One of my favourite things about social media is the easy access it gives me to information from government departments: WINZ, IRD, Customs, they’re all there. Most of them treat Twitter like a help desk and merely answer questions during business hours but some, MPI in particular, manage to be brilliantly funny and genuinely helpful at the same time.

MPI is one of the accounts I have notifications turned on for, which mean whenever they tweet I get an alert on my phone. As soon as there is a development with mycoplasma bovis I know about it, and if I have a question it is answered very quickly.

The flip side to you and I having access to an incredibly responsive government department is that every other muppet on the internet does too; I’ve seen the people who run the MPI account subjected to endless bouts of ill-informed outrage on Twitter. This, however, is far better than Facebook where they get threats of actual violence, a nice reminder why I’ve never signed up to that particular platform.

In the wake of the mycoplasma bovis outbreak I’ve often found myself defending MPI on Twitter, partly because their social media team is so effortlessly brilliant and don’t deserve the vitriol sent their way, and partly because they’re unfairly copping it from all sides: the general public and farmers alike.

The general public’s concern seem to be divided into two camps; outrage that the disease incursion occurred in the first place and outrage that the infected cattle are being processed for human consumption.

MPI resolutely plug away dispelling myths, referring back to the science, pointing out the differences between M. Bovis and BSE.

Blaming MPI for the incursion itself is ridiculous, they don’t randomly send officers to farms to check for diseases that we don’t know are there on the off chance they might find something, and the disease itself is very difficult to test for. M. Bovis requires multiple tests over a period of time, a positive test means you’ve got it but a negative test doesn’t necessarily mean you’re safe. Given the stakes for the country and the individual farmers we all want the testing to be thorough and accurate.

Farmer concern has largely been centred on wanting to know how the disease arrived and why it has been allowed to spread as far as it has. As far as how it was introduced, speculation is rife but ultimately we may never know.

The disease has spread through the country via stock movement, and farmer expectation was that MPI would press a button on the NAIT computer and know within minutes exactly which animals from an infected farm had gone where. Unfortunately, while NAIT compliance of stock transfers from farm to slaughter sit at something like 95%, compliance for inter farm transfers is around 30%.

There are many problems with NAIT, from the decision to use low frequency (FDX) tags when every other country rejected them in favour of HDX to the clunky user interface, but at the end of the day it has been low industry compliance that has led to delays in tracing stock movement. We should all be extremely grateful Foot and Mouth wasn’t the disease to expose the flaws in NAIT.

Opportunity Knocks -- December 2017

I recently spoke at the Senior Prizegiving for our local college, I did this partly because I’m the Board Chair and it was expected of me and partly because it was my last opportunity to see the awards presented from on stage. I don’t particularly like getting up to speak in front of a couple of hundred people, but sometimes you’ve just got to do these things if only to see what it’s like.

Of course I had the coveted speaking slot between guest speaker Peter Datlen, an engaging, funny, relatable and highly successful former student now working for Rocket Labs, and the awarding of the special trophies and scholarships; I was quite literally the person everyone hoped would keep it brief so they could get to the good stuff.

And keep if brief I did, partly because they weren’t really there to listen to me but mainly because I forgot to write my speech until just before the ceremony.

In the tradition of speeches from the Board Chair I was expected to give the assembled senior classes a piece of advice for their futures, something simple and catchy that they could immediately forget as soon as I resumed my seat.

The piece of advice I gave them was this: take opportunities when they present themselves, live life and make memories, don’t look back and think “what if?”

Identifying and taking opportunities was something I came to late in life, it was something I learned from my wife who was forever searching out things for our children to try and putting in front of them, presenting them with opportunities and seeing how far it would take them.

I had the opportunity last year to travel to Germany with the college and I very nearly said no due to work commitments. I’m very glad I said yes instead, and Mr Pow the German teacher will be thrilled to know I picked up a couple of hundred new Twitter followers by live tweeting the entire journey. I may have missed some of his very important insights into German culture and history in the process, but I have made some wonderful new friends and have a trove of memories.

It doesn’t have to be a big thing like an overseas trip or taking a job offer or buying a farm, it can be a very small thing like following up on a suggestion made via social media. I almost declined the offer to write this monthly column because I didn’t believe I had anything of value to share, but I took the plunge and it has been very satisfying; my twitter advocacy of agriculture has reached a whole new audience. The reward is when people come up to me when I’m out and tell me how much they enjoyed a particular piece.

Opportunities aren’t always obvious, but nowadays I find myself saying “yes” to new things a lot more often than I used to. And subsequently I’m having a lot more fun.

A Sigh Of Relief -- September 2017

I imagine there was a collective sigh of relief from farmers up and down the country at about 11pm on Saturday night. I imagine this because that was my reaction, and I milk 1000 cows on the outskirts of Ashburton on an irrigated farm. The relief was tinged with shock at the loss of the Maori Party, who was the only other party in consideration for my vote, and disappointment that New Zealand First would once again hold the balance of power.

In an election campaign of misinformation, half-truths and outright lies it was often hard to separate fact from fiction. There were big audacious $11 billion fibs to sow doubt and confusion and there were lies of omission designed to pit different sectors against one another.

So why relief? Call farmers what you will, and I’ve been called many unflattering things during this election campaign, but we are first and foremost business people and we like certainty - something which was in woefully short supply.

The Green Party to their credit were honest with their policies; agriculture would be phased into the emissions trading scheme, commercial use of water would be taxed, a moratorium would be placed on dairy conversions and cow numbers would be reduced over a period of time. Pollution would also be taxed, a policy I’m in favour of, but they chose to target nitrate which is very difficult to measure. No other sector is asked to pay taxes based on broad guesswork and farmers sure as hell don’t want to be the first.

There are arguments to be made for and against each of the Green policies, but each of them require a very high level of trust from the parties that will be affected. When a Green MP posts videos on Facebook telling viewers that the dairy industry is the equivalent of 90 million people pumping their untreated sewage directly into waterways, one could feel that the trust required for my support hasn’t quite been earned.

Labour’s water tax policy was the one that got all the publicity and that was no accident. It was a calculated populist move with one aim: to halt their slide in the polls and to snatch as many votes back off the Greens as possible. Had the policy simply been “we think commercial users of water should pay a royalty” it would have been a very dry argument indeed.

Much has been made of National stoking the urban rural divide with wild stories of cow slaughter, but the Labour wedge was more insidious. Irrigation was constantly conflated with pollution despite all evidence to the contrary; Canterbury accounts for something like 65 percent of all the country’s irrigation, watering 11 percent  of its land area, yet only 4 percent of the rivers are deemed poor for swimming. In contrast Auckland irrigates about 1 percent of its land area but boasts a hefty 62 percent of rivers rated poor for swimming.

The focus was constantly on dairy farms of which about 2000 irrigate, little mention was made of the other 9000 farms that hold consent to water as they didn’t fit the polluting narrative. It worked too, I can’t recall a situation in New Zealand where people have been protesting the opposition.

Jacinda Ardern was quick to reassure urban voters they would not be charged the tax as they already paid for their water; a refrain I heard constantly on Twitter and eventually gave up arguing against. Nobody in New Zealand pays for fresh water; not the irrigator, not the water bottler and not the resident who takes a 15 minute shower, but when you receive a monthly “water bill” the lie that you do is very easy to believe.

David Parker was asked on election night if he regretted the framing of the water tax; he did not, the huge amount of publicity it drew kept water pollution at the front of voter’s minds he said.

It did its job; Ardern’s ascension coupled with support for policies like the water tax drew Green and NZF voters to Labour. We won’t know until the final results are in, but I suspect the publicity also galvanised National supporters to get out and vote. No matter which way you slice it, 46% of the vote and a potential fourth term is an impressive feat.

But still the concern lingers. Just under half of the country voted for change and just under half voted for stability, and with Winston holding the balance of power I fear neither will get what they want.

This article published by Newsroom, 25/09/2017

That Water Meeting -- September 2017

Last month I attended a water meeting in Ashburton hosted by David Parker, Labour’s spokesman for water and the environment. The meeting had been planned for months and would, I imagine, have attracted little interest were in not for Labour announcing their policy to tax irrigation just a few weeks earlier.

I know Labour call it a royalty on commercial water use, but as it only affects irrigators and some water bottlers I think irrigation tax is a fair summary. Many column centimetres have been written about this tax in the past month and it depresses me to see so many commentators still getting so many things wrong, but I’d like to focus on the meeting itself because it was truly a fascinating game of two halves.

Parker was on a circuit of the country to promote Labour’s plans to improve water quality and Ashburton was his latest stop. He started by taking us on a photo tour of dodgy farming practices throughout the country that were affecting water quality: beef feed lots in the Hawke’s Bay with sediment traps overflowing into waterways, cows being wintered in Southland with massive pugging next to rivers, high country break feeding of deer and ‘spray and pray’ cropping practices on hill country. There was, at the insistence of Federated Farmers, one slide showing a polluted urban waterway in Auckland.

With each new slide the confused muttering in the room became more audible; “that’s not Canterbury”, “that has nothing to do with irrigation”. It was becoming increasingly clear that Parker was there to talk about one thing and the audience another.

He showed an excellent grasp of the issues surrounding water quality but brushed urban pollution to one side. When the picture of Coe’s Ford popped onto the screen he again showed good knowledge, conceding that the river had always disappeared underground at certain points and that irrigation was but one factor in an extremely complex system, exacerbated by three dry summers in a row.

Parker surprised me by saying that he supported National’s decision to fire the ECan board and install a commissioner, the first time I’d ever heard anyone in opposition deviate from the “death of democracy” line.

Parker’s pitch was this: Regional Councils have all the power at their disposal to implement and enforce nutrient management plans and to manage land use change but, with the exception of ECan, they’re not doing it and he’s pissed off about it. Labour, he said, would issue a National Policy Statement outlining their expectations and this would force the councils to act. It shouldn’t be necessary to do this, and ECan have proved it can be done, but other councils had dropped the ball.

He was charming, he was persuasive, he was knowledgeable and he summed up by saying that we had nothing to fear from Labour as ECan was leading the way and nothing would change. Had a controversial new policy not just been released he may well have sewn up a few votes by that stage.

Parker then invited questions from the floor and, no surprise, the first one was about water pricing.

The mood changed immediately and the audience became “you people”, we were told the rural/urban divide was huge and it was mainly the fault of Federated Farmers for defending indefensible practices.

He conceded Labour had made a mess of the Foreshore and Seabed situation and this, combined with Brash’s Orewa speech and Tuhoe “running around with guns” had made it impossible to address water rights, but that time was finally here.

Parker expressed frustration at the wild speculation on pricing and felt pushed into a allocating a 1 -2c/cumec band, totally failing to accept that releasing the policy with a price would’ve avoided any speculation at all.

Farmer after farmer stood up to speak: some like myself spoke of cost to business and were told we were wrong, others like David Clark expressed concern at being labelled polluters and spoke eloquently about the effect on the community of losing that money. He was ignored.

Tiring of our questions Parker snapped “I’m not here to negotiate with you; if you push me the tax will be closer to 2c than 1c”

He soon called the meeting to a close saying that neither of us was going to convince the other, he clearly though our concerns should be saved for the consultation period.

By this point I was convinced of one thing; the tax has nothing to do with pollution. The money going to iwi and ECan would be used at their discretion as it’s not central government’s job to direct regional councils how to use their resources. First and foremost the tax was a tool to halt Labour’s slide in the polls by grabbing the urban, to snatch votes back off the Green Party. With 70% public support for the policy they’d be mad to back down no matter how ineffectual it will be in cleaning up waterways.

Parker had his supporters in the room too, and the comments of one rammed home to me how much work we have to do to connect with non-farmers. “You bastards” he said, shaking with rage and pointing his finger at the crowd, “have had it your own way for far too long. You deserve everything you’ve got coming to you.”

And Parker nodded in agreement.

Water Tax -- August 2017

Deadlines being what they are, this column was written before I had attended the meeting on water with David Parker

It’s strange to be contemplating paying for water as I survey the damage another 60mm of rain has done to an already waterlogged dairy farm, but here we are. It must be an election year.

What a bold and defining policy it is too: a levy on all commercial water users! A levy on water bottlers (but not Coca Cola), a levy on farmers (but only for irrigation, not for stock water), a levy on… well that’s the end of the list really, all other commercial users of water seem to have escaped for now.

Currently all water to everyone is free, you may pay for pipes and treatment and delivery but the water itself is free. This is a detail that seems lost on anyone with a residential water meter whose immediate response seems to be “I pay for my water, so can the farmers!”

It seems to be a detail lost on David Parker too, Labour’s spokesperson for Water and the Environment asserts that Coca Cola would not be subject to the levy as they already pay Auckland Council and “nobody should have to pay twice.”  Well I’m sorry David, but Coke don’t pay for the water, they pay for its treatment and delivery to their plant, the water itself is free. By the same logic anyone on an irrigation scheme should also be exempt as they already pay for the water and “nobody should have to pay twice.”

What exactly is the levy supposed to achieve? If it’s supposed to send a price signal that intensification is not the way to go, I fear Mr Parker is about to learn about unintended consequences.
About 70% of all irrigation in New Zealand occurs in Canterbury, some 385,000 hectares are irrigated, and by far the most profitable use of that land is dairying yet only about half that is used for that purpose.

I calculated that, at 2 cents per cumec, the farm I manage would be liable for between $50,000 and $60,000 per annum in irrigation tax, a figure that made my arable friends’ eyes water. “The thought you could come up with $60k ‘spare’ money for tax sickens me!” said one cropping farmer on twitter “none spare here!”

Low debt dairy farms may well be able to absorb the cost, lower margin arable farms might find it a little tougher.

If you’re an arable farmer faced with an extra tax for continuing to water, doesn’t converting to dairying look a little more attractive? As a dairy farmer that $60k adds 13c to my cost of producing every kg of milk solids: how do I claw that back? Intensification seems to be the simple answer.

If, as Mr Parker says, the revenue is to be used to clean up waterways nationwide, I hope Canterbury can withstand the sudden evaporation of tens of millions of dollars from the local economy.