The TV comment was made whilst referring to our low cost dairy industry where, by international standards, production per animal is relatively low. It is somewhat ironic in that it is our arable industry in which measured production has broken world records and a ploughman has recently become the world champion .
If we are to retain this lofty international perception , New Zealand farmers can’t rest on their laurels. In terms of world production we are miniscule and if we are to continue to compete and prosper, we will have to focus our management skills on producing high quality products.
In one highly populated country where they need all the food they produce, they practice three tier farming on the one piece of land, i.e. Coconuts at the top level, Cocoa at the second level and Vegetables at ground level. They've been doing that since time began. In Kyrgyzstan near the city of Osh, which is said to be older than Rome, a crop of wheat undersown with white clover yielded seven tonnes per hectare. That was off land next to one of the strands of the old Silk Road, land that has been farmed continuously since those times. It was a yield that would have been regarded as good by New Zealand standards for the time. The generations who farmed those lands, and who will farm them in the future, deserve some recognition for their outstanding innovative and sustainable farm management practices? As a young country, our sustainability is still to be tested.
In some New Zealand farming circles there was an oft expressed belief that farmers within the EEC must be less than able in that they needed subsidies to prop them up. In these more enlightened times there has been a realisation that many of those farmers are really smart operators. They farm and have adapted to a subsidised environment and they know how to maximize their opportunities. They know more about “Profit Centres”, Return On Investment and the laws of “diminishing returns” than many New Zealand farmers. Outstanding recording systems and Key Performance indicators from those records are embedded in their thinking.
So whilst we may lavish in the mantle of being tagged “the best farmers in the world”, we must realise that the competition out there is tough. We must also realise there are others in the food chain who have contributed to the perception and it may be, the farmers who are in fact the weak link in the chain. Many of the contributors are unheralded, underfunded and go unnoticed. They include our Scientists, Consultants, an innovative servicing industry and a stable and functioning infrastructure. All things considered however, and despite the current drought, the greatest contributor to our competitive advantage is our climate.
What’s this about farmers being the “weak link” in the chain?
The fact is our farm management skills are very variable. Ask yourself, why is it that one of our largest dairy farming conglomerates has collapsed? Why is it that finalists in the Lincoln Foundation Farmer of the Year” competition achieve bottom line results two and three times above the national average for their industry type? The answer in these instances is management, bad and outstanding. Good Farm Management is one of the things a farmer can do something about. Accurate and timely decision making based on real facts combined with critical thinking does make a difference! This is often referred to as "keeping your finger on the pulse" and best of all, it's not painful or expensive.
In New Zealand we have some great farm management software, including LandMark (which incidently has also been described as amongst “the best in the world”). The last sited independent research on computer use on New Zealand farms showed that these tools are not being used effectively by farmers. This is a pity. The tools are there and If we are to give substance to our perceived global reputation, then the time to get going is now!
John Lay
0 comments:
Post a Comment