Todd McClay: Agriculture and Forestry Minister on the positive future of food and fibre exports

There's optimism from the Agriculture and Forestry Minister on the future of food and fibre exports. 

The Ministry for Primary Industries projects exports will reach just under $57 billion by June, and over $58 billion the following year. 

Horticulture exports are expected to rise 12%, with dairy forecast to grow by 10%. 

Minister Todd McClay told Heather du Plessis-Allan he sees a positive future with China. 

He says its market will be a key reason why dairy exports are forecast to increase. 

Meat and wool revenues are also expected to rise slightly to $11.4 billion as demand strengthens. 

McClay told du Plessis-Allan that wool's commodity price is starting to increase and there's new users. 

He says the Indian Parliament only has New Zealand wool in its buildings, which shows there's a good role for wool but there's a lot of work to do. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Once again, it looks like our farmers are the stars

(00:02):
of our economy. It's predicted that our food and fiber
exports are set to break records this year, with annual
exports tip to reach almost fifty seven billion dollars by June,
and the next year are going to just break that
record all over again. Joining me now is Agriculture and
Forestry Minister Todd mclahay.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
Todd, good morning, Heather, Thank goodness with the farmers an
they're did a great job because we know they work
very hard, but that they're getting better prices overseas as
a bit of a relief. It's really good for the
New Zealand economy. But it is driving up by returns
at the farm gate. And if the time we need
our farmers doing well for us, it's right now.

Speaker 1 (00:33):
Yeah, totally. Now dairy is not going to surprise anybody
because we know that that's doing well. We know that
Kiwi fruit is doing as well as well. But I
see you Reckon Wol's going to pick up what are
you seeing there?

Speaker 2 (00:43):
We are It's interesting we've seen the commodity price start
to increase. So Mark Patterson, Who's associate when they said
I've given him responsibility to focus solely on wool is
doing a really good job and we're starting to see
summon the roads and new users for that fiber. I mean, incidentally,
tomorrow I'm jumping on a plane to go off last
visit to India for the year as we build that relationship.

(01:03):
The Indian Parliament only has New Zealand woolen carpets everywhere
through their buildings, So it shows as a good role
for Will, but there's a lot of work to do
because it's been very tough for shep farmers.

Speaker 1 (01:13):
Is that weird that the Indians are using our wool
and we're not even using our wool.

Speaker 2 (01:18):
Well, I think it shows that they're much smarter than
Guigora who didn't put it in houses, and they've been
given a bit of a slap for that, but it
just shows that actually this is a product that is
wanted around the world. We just got to market a
bit better and a bit of reform. Tell me. The
other one that's a real standout for me is the
rebound in forestry. It's a six billion dollars worth of exports.
The commodity price is still very very low, but the

(01:40):
sector is working quite hard, and we're starting to see
a bit more evalue added. Some of the sawmills are
doing better than they were, and you know that's going
up the value chain. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:48):
Now on forestry, are we being a little too optimistic
if we're relying on forestry to pick up because of
building activity in China, because it feels like the opposite
is happening in China.

Speaker 2 (01:58):
Yeah, Well, we don't have too much. We don't have
too much sort of structural timber going into China, but
a lot of the wood that goes in there is
used for you know, the processing for paper and a
few other things and so on. There. I'm a lot
more optimistic than many others around China. I've been in
there a couple of times this year, and I've got
half a billion people that sort of middle class now
that are consuming more. But there are still some headwinds there.

(02:21):
Although you know, dairy to have gone up ten percent.
A lot of that is the Chinese market and part
we're going up the value chain as well. It's a
lot less about commodities, but there is a lot more
opportunity in the coming years for New Zealand and in China.
You know, ahead of a curve.

Speaker 1 (02:36):
Hey, by the way, have you been following what's going
on with the banks and the farmers and the rural communities.
You had a chat to the farmers about how they're
feeling about the banks.

Speaker 2 (02:44):
Yeah, they are. So we started an inquiry into banking
a short while ago in parliamentary inquiry, with a particular
focus on the primary sector. You know, it's been very challenging.
I'm starting to hear from farmers a little bit of relief,
but that's probably less the banks of doing and the
inquiry more that, you know, the work the government's doing
is getting inflation down, so interest rates are coming to

(03:06):
track down, but there are some work to do there.
We're just going to make sure that the primary sector
can have confidence in what the banks are doing, that
everybody is working as hard as they can to grow
the New Zealands.

Speaker 1 (03:15):
Yeah, I just want to I mean, how do you
feel as the agriculture is about banks saying to farmers
that they're not going to lend to them unless the
farmers get their emissions down to a certain level. How
do you feel about them being the climate police.

Speaker 2 (03:26):
Yeah, well they should not be. And I see one
of the Australian Banks has a view that New Zealand
farmers need to do more than Australian farm Yes, they're
welcome to that view, but they should keep it to
themselves and look at ways to get interest rates down
for farmers and you know, make them be productive. However,
there is a wider point here is that we do
have international obligations. We do have to meet them because
you know, consumers around the world of customers are demanding this.

(03:49):
Having said that, we have to find ways to get
emissions down without closing down farms, because otherwise all we
do is send those jobs and production overseas. And we're
really clear that one we've got a plan to do
that with farmers. Two we're not going to be closing
down farms in New Zealand, so American and European farmers
can do more good stuff.

Speaker 1 (04:05):
Todd, Thanks very much, Todd McLay, Agriculture Forestry Minister. Hopefully
the banks wire listening to.

Speaker 2 (04:09):
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