The Country 09/07/25: Campbell Parker talks to Jamie Mackay

The chief executive of DairyNZ discusses the Foot and Mouth (FMD) Operational Agreement, improvements in winter grazing practices, and the successful recent Farmers Forums.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Here's an industry in a good space at the moment,
the dairy industry. The bloke who is the chief executive
of Dairy and Z Campbell Parker. Good to get him
back on the show. Campbell, it was good to catch
up with you, by the way at Field Days. But
at Field Days we had that foot and mouth operational
agreement between all the industry good bodies. We're going to
keep it out.

Speaker 2 (00:18):
Yeah, Look, Jomie, we did. We announce the operational agreement
and that's been a decade kind of in the making,
all the livestock sectors, processes and government agreeing how we
will have an operational agreement, how we would deal with
both a response or ever get here touch wood it
never does. But really importantly that we have a clear
plan around readiness.

Speaker 1 (00:40):
I remember when I was at Riversdale Primary School and
that was a long long time ago. Now, our wonderful
headmaster mister Young, the late Alan Young, said to us
it's a matter of when not a foot and mouth
comes to New Zealand. So that was more than fifty
years ago. I think we've done very well and we
actually have obviously some natural advantages over for instance, grouped

(01:00):
European countries. But it's just you can't overstress the importance
of keeping it.

Speaker 2 (01:05):
Out absolutely and I mean we are as she's so
fortunate to have a border, you know in terms of
an island nation at the bottom of the world. But
you know there are instances. Germany had outbreak this last
year for the first time in thirty five years, so
it's still a risk and the impact on New Zealand
would be significant. So really clear that we work together

(01:27):
with government to have a clear plan around a how
I said earlier would respond, but more importantly, what activities
do we need to have in place? Still get a
clear playbook and you're.

Speaker 1 (01:36):
The inaugural chair of the FMD Council. Well done, Campbell
Parker Winter or wintering survey results. It's not that long
ago that the word dirty dairying was being bandied about
and we were constantly being shown terrible scenes of wintering practices,
especially of dairy cows. There's a way to go, I'll

(01:56):
admit that, but gee, we've improved a lot.

Speaker 2 (02:00):
We have come a long way, and hats off to
the farmers for all their effort. If you look around
the efforts over the last five years and the survey
we did, you know that later server eighty six percent
have implemented you know, what we would call good farming
practices for wintering cows over the last period. That was
seventy four percent in twenty twenty three. So it keeps
going up and there's a lot of tools available to farmers.

(02:22):
Now we've learned a lot around a portable troughs and
other things grazing. How we do that and do that well,
So you know, got to keep doing that well. We
do gras our animals outdoor heirs and here in New Zealand,
and we've going to make sure we do that well
and winter throw some challenges with us from an environmental perspective.
So you know, good on farmers for being a lot
more productive about wintering practices.

Speaker 1 (02:44):
Now I'll put a conditional rider on that. I still
see bad examples. So Campbell, especially in the South London.

Speaker 2 (02:50):
Well you do, and you know you get and I
think last year South in case in point, the council
put up you know, single wind plane and drone to
have a lock up five or six cases. What we're
able to do though is get up those driveways quickly
now and address what the issues are. So I think
that's been a big move forward and we're just got
to keep vigilant around it because there's a lot of

(03:12):
really good work being done by the majority of farmers.

Speaker 1 (03:16):
Darien Zider's finished the last of its three Farmer Forum events.
You had great turnouts at all of them, as I
understand what was covered. What was the feedback?

Speaker 2 (03:26):
Yeah, look, it was and it was around you integrate, collaborate,
and innovates, so you know, people thinking about getting off
farm think about the bigger, broader perspective. So we had
a futurist involved, which stretch a bit of thinking around
where the future is going and how can we adapt
as farmers. We had the talests from trade around what's

(03:46):
happening in the trade space, and then brought it back
to economics around the importance of New Zealand's competitive and
advantage and some of the analysis our economics and science
teams have been doing. And then really kind of when
to where the opportunities for the sector around productive performance
but also the science where we're doing to help farmers

(04:08):
with that as well as the opportunity to continue to
balance environmental standards and productivity and profitability. So yeah, a
really good day. We're probably at over five hundred farmers
and professionals across those three events, and good ranger speakers.

Speaker 1 (04:22):
Good on you, Deari's in a good space coming off
a ten dollars season. Hopefully the next one will equal
that or do better. Campbell Parker from darien Zed, chief
executive and the inaugural chair of the FMD Council, put
that one on your CV. Campbell, good to the chat mate

Speaker 2 (04:38):
Yeah, good to chat Dammy, thank you.