Todd McClay: Agriculture and Forestry Minister on the rise in food and fibre export value

Todd McClay says surging value and supply is behind the rise in food and fibre export revenue. 

The latest forecasts project export earnings of $59.9 billion for the year ending later this month.  

It's now on track to reach $65.7 billion by 2029. 

Agriculture and Forestry Minister Todd McClay told Mike Hosking we're seeing sectors like Horticulture raise exports by 20%. 

He says for the first time ever we saw Zespri sell $5 billion worth of kiwifruit around the world. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
More yet more good numbers around our economy. It seems
export in New Zealand and think pretty much rolling in it.
At the moment, Food and fiber are on track to
surpass the sixty billion mark for the first time. That'll
be three billion higher than projected. Horts up nineteen percent
to eight and a half billion diary of course, sixteen
percent up to twenty seven billion. That story is well told.
Tom mcclay's the Agriculture and Trade Minister of course, and

(00:20):
as well it's Todd morning Field days good.

Speaker 2 (00:24):
Yeah, a great feeling yesterday, very positive. Farmers are feeling
good and we're starting to hear from a lot of
the exhibitors there that they're starting to spend some money.
So that's great for the economy.

Speaker 1 (00:33):
So that twenty percent in the budget will or is working.

Speaker 2 (00:38):
Yeah, it is. Look, I think they're still going to
be cautious and just rates have only just started to
come down and there'll be just a bit of debt
around and there's a you know, international uncertainty. But I
heard a story of one farmer yesterday that bought three tractors.
He said he's needed them for a long time, but
this has just helped them and done. He decided to
spend that money now rather than on the back of
good dairy payouts, pay a bit of tax.

Speaker 1 (00:59):
Good this bill, I mean, is this sheer demand? And
if it is, where's the demand coming from?

Speaker 2 (01:05):
It's a combination of three things. Yes, more demand around
the world. We're seeing Europe are very good for us
out of those free trade agreements, Southeast Asia and even
China starting to comeback quite strongly now, at least for
New Zealand exporters. Secondly, we've had a good year for
a grass growing and a lot more milk out there.

(01:26):
And then we're also seeing that in many cases starting
to go up the value chain a little bit more.
I'm going to give you an example of one of
those numbers, horses up twenty percent for the first time ever.
Zespery has sold five billion dollars with a Kiwi fruit
around the world. That's extra volume, but it's extra value
as well.

Speaker 1 (01:44):
So the supply side of that equation. If we grew more,
planted more, did more, could we sell more or are
we at max? No?

Speaker 2 (01:52):
We could so, absolutely we could. And the reason for
that is, you know, we are a small producer compared
to the population of the world. So think of it
this way. You know, we're in India. In fact, I
think last week I had negotiators up there in India.
I met with the Indian trademan as the last week
and we said to our negotiators, get on with it.
We're very keen for a deal. If we unlock that,

(02:12):
even just half of the potential that Australia on their FDA,
we could not produce enough food for the demand in
that market. But guess what I backed my negotiators get
a better deal.

Speaker 1 (02:23):
Good is our people cognizant of all of this in
the sense who is and where are they that can
buy more land, plant more land, develop more land, do
all of that and is that happening or not?

Speaker 2 (02:37):
Well, it's two things. We're going through a lot of
reform of planning rules and water and so on to
focus on better outcomes, not just expensive processes. And so
actually what we have the oportunity is maximize the production
on the land that we already have. But I've got
a piece of work underway that we'll be talking about
soon that really says, if you can show the same

(02:57):
or an improved environmental or climate footprint, then why shouldn't
you be able to change your land use or produce more,
And so we've got to move away from a situation
that it says we have to you know, we should
be producing less for a result, leaning into technology and
innovation and finding ways to be much more productive because
guess what our farmers are how we make New Zealand.

Speaker 1 (03:17):
Richard the other part of the equation. So beef's an
interesting one. There's a lack of beef in some parts
of the world being locally produced. Therefore we fill the void.
Is there a chance that those people start producing more,
whether it's beef or dairy or whatever, and then we're
a bit stuck.

Speaker 2 (03:31):
Well, that's always going to happen a little better. I mean,
I think about a number of markets. We always compete locally.
What happens is we don't often compete on price. So
if I take the EU market or the Chinese market,
we generally are at a higher price point in that
market than their producers are, So that means we're not
competing unfairly. But I was talking to one of our

(03:51):
big exports yesterday. We launched a grass fed certification and
standard that says the New Zealand government put a stamp
on your product dairy or red meat to say it
is grass fed, because we know in a number of
markets around the world, those consumers are willing to pay more.
They told me with everything going on in the US,
their grass fed brand just has the greatest amount of

(04:13):
growth of any of their products ever there. And it's
across the board. So even if we do face competition elsewhere,
that high quality, safe reputation that we have, you know,
backing that up will mean that actually we can weather
in the odd storm.

Speaker 1 (04:25):
Good related matters your thing on key we saber and
opening it up to farms and stock and stuff. Where
are you at with that?

Speaker 2 (04:32):
Yeah, it works underway certainly on that. It was a
commitment we made before the election. We've sort of been
chunking through the very long list of things that we
committed to doing for the primary sector and some of
the ones who were most important holding them back. But
I would expect we'll have more to say before the
end of the year.

Speaker 1 (04:48):
Good stuff. Appreciate your time. Tom McLay, who's the Egg
and Trade Minister, with us.

Speaker 2 (04:51):
This morning for more from the Mic Asking Breakfast listen
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