Mark Hopper: Federated Farmers national board member on Minister Shane Jones calling for more investment in aquaculture sector

Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones has agreed New Zealand's dairy sector is 'capped out' - and investing in aquaculture is the way to go.

In an interview with Newsroom, Jones claimed the aquaculture sector faced fewer barriers and offered more opportunities than other primary industries- including wool, dairy and meat.

Mark Hopper from Federated Farmers says there's opportunity in aquaculture, but we shouldn't give up on the dairy sector.

"We really want to get back into a position where we can see some positive growth happening across all the primary sub-sectors - they're critical for our economy."

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Now, Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says we're at peak cow.
He says dairy is capped out, and he says it's
time to start investing in aquaculture. He said, we're not
allowed to grow any more dairy farms due to negative
water outcomes. Wall's not making much money and the meat
sector is facing calls to decrease its footprint and instead,
he says, the aquaculture sector is now one of New
Zealand's most promising industries.

Speaker 2 (00:21):
Now.

Speaker 1 (00:21):
Mark Hooper is a national board member of Federated Farmers
and with us Now.

Speaker 2 (00:24):
Hey, Mark, good evening, Heather.

Speaker 1 (00:26):
Do you agree with Shane Jones?

Speaker 2 (00:29):
Well, I agree with them in the sense that there's
a huge amount of potential and aquaculture and so we
shouldn't definitely shouldn't put that aside. I guess though, the
terminology that you used there around being at peak care,
that's certainly a rhetoric that's been going around for a while.
And you know, the industry has been really focused on

(00:52):
milking the best cows, not necessarily more cows, and as
such has been able to sustain or even grow production
slightly over the last few years. But you know, overall,
it's not really a good thing that we want our
major productive sectors to be stagnant. We really want to

(01:13):
get back into a position where we can see some
positive growth happening across all of the primary subsectors. They're
critical for our economy and you know, there's huge opportunity there.

Speaker 1 (01:24):
I think the argument though, is that you don't grow
the number of cows, you grow how efficient those cows are.
Is that what you're hoping. Do you still see space
for us to actually have more cows.

Speaker 2 (01:34):
Well, certainly there's a good trend towards having quality cows
and that does make a difference. That is what gives
us a whole lot of efficiencies on farm and improves performance.
But one of the things to understand that, in a sense,
the Minister was right in that over the last five years,
four years since twenty twenty anyway, when the Essential fresh

(01:56):
Water Package came and one of the National Environment standards
was effectively a moratorium on land use change to a
more intensive use over ten hectares, and so in effect
that had the biggest impact on gairy farming. Now that
National Environment standard is due to expire at the end

(02:16):
of twenty twenty four. So that perhaps creates an opportunity
where we can see some potential land use changing. And
I think the key thing here is that what we
really want to see is we don't want to see
regulations like that that distort the market place. We should
be looking for what is the highest and best use
outcome of the land that's available. Some of that will

(02:38):
transition to horticulture. There's opportunity for more land to transition
back to daring or into daring. It's just a case
of managing what the environmental impacts around that are. Mark.

Speaker 1 (02:49):
I saw you saying somewhere that you see a huge
opportunity for expansion offshore. What do you mean by that.

Speaker 2 (02:57):
Offshore? I think that was probably in reference to aquaculture,
and so obviously there is a huge opportunities.

Speaker 1 (03:03):
You like, set up a farm in Brazil.

Speaker 2 (03:06):
No, well, it's there is you know, scope to that,
but of course it's gross here in New Zealand. That
drives our economy. You know, we need growth here in
order to build our roads, build our skills, schools, hospitals,
provide employment and that sort of thing. So I think
that's where the key focus should be.

Speaker 1 (03:24):
Yeah, brilliant Hey, Mark, thank you very much. Thanks for
clarifying that's Mark Cooper. National Board metbad for font at
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