The Muster- Chris Dillon: Federated Farmers

Chris Dillon has reservations around the proposed changes for rural recycling which were recently announced.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
I want a man with a slow hand. I want
a lover with a... Chris Dillard is President of South
Confederated Farmers and joins us once again as we see
a little bit of drying out occurring around the province. Chris,
good afternoon.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
Good afternoon.

Speaker 1 (00:18):
Certainly, since we spoke to you last, spring has been spring.

Speaker 2 (00:22):
It certainly has been spring. The sand's been going a
fair bit. We're starting to get sick of that, but
it's good to have a couple of calm days, and
you can certainly see things growing now.

Speaker 1 (00:34):
The feed situation, though, like people in the middle of calving,
a lot of folk with lambing, just talking about the
lack of covers. From a fed's angle, are you seeing
a concern?

Speaker 2 (00:45):
Not any concern. It was starting to get a bit
wet there, but hopefully a couple of fine days will
fry it up a bit.

Speaker 1 (00:52):
You think Mother Nature might have given us a bit
of a respite after the past couple of springs?

Speaker 2 (00:56):
The spring's only just started. It's a problem. We'll see.

Speaker 1 (01:02):
Exactly. We're getting longer days and the likes, and we
talk about the positivity within the sector, but something that's
been introduced, a government introducing a rural recycling scheme getting
underway on the 1st of March next year. Free nationwide
recycling for farm plastics and agrochemicals. Recycling of plastics has
been a big bugbear for a lot of people. What

(01:24):
do you make of it?

Speaker 2 (01:26):
Yeah, there's still a bit of work to do on
the scheme. I do think it's good that they're getting
that underway, but The problem taking your plastic into town
for recycling is something that's not going to happen. If
they come out on farm and collect it, it will happen.
So we're still doing a bit of work in the
background to ensure a better way going forward there.

Speaker 1 (01:47):
So this involves you having to physically move stuff off
your farm. It's not a collection as such. You've got
to go to a depot.

Speaker 2 (01:54):
That is what they're based towards, having these depots. And
as you know, you're not going to take empty cans
into town. But if they come and pick it up
on farm, totally different story. And the same goes for
your bale wrap. There's been a good collection of operator
that comes out on farm and it's been working well.
But if you have to take it to town, it
ain't going to happen.

Speaker 1 (02:15):
Yeah, a lot of these operations like Plasback, for example,
will that more or less make these industries a bit
more null and void?

Speaker 2 (02:22):
No, hopefully it includes them, and that's the key to
its success. And as I said, there's still a bit
of work to do before the scheme gets underway.

Speaker 1 (02:33):
Have you heard anything else from the Minister regarding what's
going on around this, or is it just what you're
hearing in the press?

Speaker 2 (02:40):
Well, I know we're doing work in the background, but
I was quite surprised by the announcement. It seems to
happen when there's an election coming up, that things get
announced as policy like that. Yeah, it's just the way
it is, unfortunately.

Speaker 1 (02:54):
This seems to be the election about tax. I mean,
when you look at it, though, what's being proposed by
parties on the left, taxing away into prosperity, and the
Opportunity Party, I've talked about it before quite happily as well,
declaring they want to make us a welfare state, and
then you've got the Greens as well, well, they want

(03:14):
the government to control the supermarkets, for goodness sake.

Speaker 2 (03:18):
Yeah, it's a bit untidy, and as one of the
ministers said the other day, you can't stand in a
bucket and expect yourself to lift up. People that understand
things understand that agriculture is 83% of our exports in
this country, and get that going well, that's where you
get your tax tape from.

Speaker 1 (03:36):
Is there a genuine concern, though, with a change of government,
what the future looks like for the farming sector, if
that was the case?

Speaker 2 (03:43):
I'd say there's a large concern, yes.

Speaker 1 (03:46):
So you're keeping in contact with politicians on the left
as such? Joe Luxton, for example, I think I've talked
about this with you before, but perhaps you might have
been a bit more, I wouldn't say transparent, well, yeah,
transparent is the word, because we've had no policy. I've
yet to hear those magic three words, red meat sector.

Speaker 2 (04:03):
Yeah, no, we do correspond with them a lot. We
have a special thing at Fed's called Red Bands where
we meet the Labour Party regularly, and we try to
meet all parties as regularly as often as we can,
especially taking the opportunity if you're in Wellington to catch
up with them.

Speaker 1 (04:21):
How would you describe the relationship between Feds and the
current government? Has it gone as well as what you'd anticipated?

Speaker 2 (04:27):
It's gone pretty good. It is a coalition, so you
are dealing with a lot of different parties and you
just have to be careful at this time of the cycle.
What they're saying may not be true because once the
election's decided, they go and negotiate again. So that's when

(04:49):
it really comes down to it.

Speaker 1 (04:51):
Yeah, hey, we'll leave it there, Chris. We know you've
got things to do this afternoon. Thanks for your time,
as always.

Speaker 2 (04:55):
Yeah, not a problem.

Speaker 1 (04:56):
Cheers. Chris Dillon, President of Southland Federated Farmers. Interested to
see what happens with his rural recycling scheme. Yeah. Daryl
Moyles is up next of Sgt Dan's Stock Food.