Farming on the up

Waimarino Bulletin, Volume 6, Issue 228, 26 January 1988, Page 11

Farming on the up

Agriculture is on the road to recovery and its future from both a market and economic viewpoint appears bright, says Dr Bill Kain, MAFTech Regional Manager in Palmerston North. New Zealand's high standard of technology and its climatic advantages have contributed significantly to its recovery says Dr Bill Kain. "Agriculture will continue to be a large and internationally competitive industry provided the problems of marketing, processing and financial structure are addressed. "Progress is already being made in these areas," said Dr Kain. "The agricultural sector has been fully exposed to the market place and, as a result, the financial performance of land based industries is not distorted by subsidies or tariffs. The rural sector is now competing on its own merits." Well planned and managed land based industries were a sound investment provided they concentrated on value-added and market oriented production. "The need for New Zealand agriculture to move away from commodity production to high quality, upmarket and hence high value food or fibre production is obvious", said Dr Kain. "In essence we are talking about biological factories producing to specification at a particular time for a specific market segment. "This trend is emerging in new and existing agricultural industries. It requires more demanding and precise management and the support of new technologies related to production, processing, packaging and marketing". Dr Kain said that developments in the sheep meat industry were beginning to become market oriented. The more innovative companies were investing considerable amounts of money in product development and processing.

"High price speciality markets are being developed and there has been a marked and associated move towards chilled meat products. "This requires a much longer production season, which in turn has led to a need to produce out of season lambs. This has required big changes in management and new technology. "Market demands for a low fat carcass has meant that the industry has had to look beyond the usual general purpose sheep breeds to find those more suited to producing the type of product the market is demanding. "Good examples are the wiltshire and the newly introduced texel breed which have very high meat to bone and fat ratios". Low input hill country Dr Kain said that much of New Zealand's hill country, especially hard hill country, must meet the market challenges by reducing costs to achieve economic viability while, at the same time, maintaining product quality. The option is for low input farming. A profilc of a low input farm would include: * No fertiliser use .or fertiliser used only on specialist finishing blocks. * Stocking rates reduced by up to 30%. * Sheep, cattle and goats used in combination to control pastures and weeds. * Highly skilled stock management to maintain pasture quality, stock health and weed and pest control. * Good subdivision to optimise pasture and scrub control. * Relatively unimproved pasture species except for specialist finishing blocks. * Products consisting of goat fibre, wool, beef, mutton and goat meat. The new technologies required for these low input farming systems include: * Methods of goat fibre harvesting. * Specialist pasture species, and their estab-

lishment. * Knowledge of cattle/sheep/goat ratios for weed control. * Low cost methods for maintaining animal health. * New species and breeds of animals which are better able to utilise feed o f lesser nutritive value and which are more tolerant or resistant to disease. Dr Kain said that another opportunity for New Zealand agriculture was organic farming. "The world demand for high health food which is grown without the aid of chcmicals, fertilisers, pesticides and animal remedies, is rapidly increasing. "A substantial price premium is paid for these products. "Dairying, arable cropping, intensive meat production, horticulture and, to a lesser extent, extensive meat production, are involved in varying degrees in this trend. "New Zealand with its clean environment is in an excellent position to take advantage of this opportunity.