The Country 03/06/26: Dr Jacqueline Rowarth talks to Jamie Mackay

It’s seven sleeps until Fieldays, and we ask a leading primary sector academic about her role in the big Rural Industry Leaders Debate, which is raising money for the Rural Support Trust. We also discuss her latest column, which poses the question: Is diversification always better for NZ farming?

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Her name is doctor Jacqueline Rowath. Fortnightly. She writes an
excellent column on our website The Country dot co dot
Nz and I can tell you, folks, she's excelled herself
this time around. More about that in the moment. But Jacquelin,
do you realize it's only seven sleeps until you and
I are turning up at the Rural Industry Leaders Debate

(00:21):
at field Days. The Wednesday night of field Days, It's
sold out within an hour or so. There's going to
be more than six hundred people at the Crawdlands Events Center,
and we have a star studded debating teams or two
of them lined up to pitt wits. How are you
going to control that lot? Especially Shane Jones.

Speaker 2 (00:40):
Ah, well, I've got the odd thing up my sleeve
because what can I say? This is not my first dat.
So we were really lucky to have this wonderful lot
of teams. People going to contribute Shane Jones, Sue's Redmain,
Jessica March mackay and in opposition Kieren McNulty tered Hamish MacKaye.

(01:01):
It is going to be really interesting because they don't
actually get very long each and so the control factor.
Well maybe I should take my whip.

Speaker 1 (01:10):
Well, maybe you should, Jacqueline cousin. Hamish MacKaye the fill
in host here on the Country. He's a late addition.
He'll be great because he is very good. But I
think he's filling in for Tovah O'Brien, who was meant
to be going up against Jessica much MacKaye, and it's
ruined one of my gags for the night. You know
the next question Tovah Jessica, Jessica Tovah to quote a

(01:32):
former prime Minister of ours. So that's a bit of
a shame. But Hamish shall do a great job the
Star last year, even though you gave the best speaker
to the young former Young Farmer of the Year George Dodson,
who followed the rules. But Sue's redmain the national MP
for Rangeticky was a real surprise package for me and
Grant McCullum. Grant mcnational spent telling me that all the

(01:53):
national Caucus are dropping their best one liners on Sue
so she can deliver them next Wednesday night lovely.

Speaker 2 (02:01):
Then we'll have a lot of hilarity and hope to
raise a lot of money for the rural support trust
because that's what this debate is fine to do. So
it's going to be great. We're all looking forward to
it in our best chic mystery creek gear.

Speaker 1 (02:18):
You've written a really interesting column diversification or here's the
question that's posed by the column. Is diversification always better
for New Zealand farming the trade offs explained by doctor
Jack Wall and Rowath, Because diversification isn't always the answer.

Speaker 2 (02:35):
No, it actually costs quite a lot and we have
to decide whether the costs are actually worth it. And
when we think about the traditional farm with its diversification,
it was really serving quite a lot or preparing giving food,
selling food to the local community and so it was
mixed ender pize. But for New Zealand, with only five

(02:56):
point three million people, we have to serve what's overseas
and the only way we get there at something that
people are prepared to afford is by having the economies
of scale, which is why our cooperatives work so well
and why they've actually got bigger and bigger. You think
of fonterra forming from what at one point was three
hundred and thirty four local cooperatives, it's a really interesting

(03:20):
conundrum because people are talking about food security, but some
of the things they want as staples we simply don't grow.
So do we try and say we will grow them
in future? But as long as the government subsidizes the
farmers to grow something that they know will not be
as economically viable as other say crops or animal protein

(03:44):
through daring, or beef and sheep, it is a conundrum.

Speaker 1 (03:48):
The latest survey of rural people by some outfit that
I can't name.

Speaker 2 (03:54):
The BSI what used to be land care.

Speaker 1 (03:57):
All right, okay, so says there are all red three
commercial activities on most farms, which I guess you've got sheep,
beef and a better crop and that going on. But
it does surprise me when you've got like a dairy farm,
because most dairy farms that I know literally only have
one commercial activity.

Speaker 2 (04:14):
Well, they might be selling bull beef, it's true developers.
They might be selling heifers to other farms. They might
be growing maize and selling off. So what isn't very
clear to me is exactly how Pikes Brown, the lead
author here, actually clarifies a different income stream how far away.

(04:37):
But what we know, and this was an Agribusiness Report
something like twenty fourteen from Lincoln is that they were
saying that on the Canterbury planes, if you are beef
and sheep, so they's footpills, think tourism, think honey. Well,
some of that's gone well and some of it hasn't.
But if your dairy focused, so the focus is what's

(05:00):
given us an economic advantage in international markets, and that
becomes the cost. Because right at the moment the Cangary
planes are really struggling in their arable growers. And we
know that some famous arable people, and Hamish mar is
one of them, past Special Envoy for Agriculture. He has

(05:20):
actually brought in their family's brought into a dairy farm,
so he sees that he can't make enough money for
the family to be viable in just arable so and
he actually had fattening lambs as well over winter. So
farmers are making economic decisions, but they're not always being

(05:42):
approved by society who actually still once canned peaches or
process vegetables from may plains of the Hawk's Bay area.

Speaker 1 (05:52):
Manage this, okay, just to finish on because I'm running
out of time. You mentioned famous farmers, and you mentioned
I thought you were going to throw to them. Perhaps
the most famous farmer in the UK, Jeremy Clarkson from
Dudley Scott Farms. You've managed to weave him into your column.
How did you do that?

Speaker 2 (06:09):
Because he is showing and he's been awarded farming awards
for raising the profile of how extraordinarily difficult it actually
is to make money from agriculture. Now, a real farmer
looks at Jeremy and shakes their head because of the
dumb things he does, including buying Ferrari tractors or.

Speaker 1 (06:28):
Was it Lamborghini Lamborghini.

Speaker 2 (06:30):
I think at Lamborghini the Italians should stick to fashion
and fast cards, accept the fast cards bone fee. Also,
moving away from that, he shows the difficulties. Not everybody
can farm. You just can't come in at sixty years
old and say I'm going to be a farmer now.
And he's got cheerful Charlie and Caleb helping him, and

(06:50):
he just each week we see him shaking his head saying,
so you mean I've lost eighty four thousand pounds eighty
four pounds on working very very hard all year to
try and get the grains they were eaten. It's pretty depressive.

Speaker 1 (07:06):
You can read all about it on our website at
the country dot co dot in Zeta's diversification always better
for New Zealand farmers. Doctor Jackwillon Roweth. I'll see you
at Field Days next Wednesday and also at the Big
Rural Industry Leaders Debate on Wednesday evening at Claudland's Events Center.
Congratulations to Mike Green and all the team behind that.

(07:27):
It's a wonderful effort are fundraising for the Rural Support Trust.
See you then, see you there.

Speaker 2 (07:32):
Thanks