Federated Farmers Vice President Colin Hurst says he was unaware the New Zealand Agriculture & Climate Change Conference had taken place, after the organisation’s absence from the event was publicly noted.

“I honestly wasn’t aware it was on,” he says.

“Wayne [Langford] is our spokesperson for climate change, I’d imagine he would have been there.”

Federated Farmers’ President Wayne Langford was overseas at the time of the conference. Hurst, acting in his place, says the absence was not a matter of policy. 

“It never crossed my desk on this one, I’ll check out with the team what’s going on there.”

Hurst says there are three strands of work Federated Farmers is pursuing in the arable sector. The first involves Rural Support events held throughout Canterbury, following a damaging 10–15-day rainfall event in late January, that left sprouted clover and wheat crops worthless. A medium-scale event declaration has been made, extending tax deadlines and payment timeframes for affected farmers.

The second strand involves strategy meetings, with one in-person in Mid Canterbury and two online, focused on developing more partnership-related contracts with grain and seed merchants in response to rising costs for fuel, fertiliser and chemicals.

Hurst says he has been encouraged by recent government engagement. Ministers Mark Patterson, Mike Butterick and Nicola Grigg visited arable chair David Birkett to discuss sector challenges three weeks ago.

“We’re really quite excited that the government has taken this really seriously,” he says.

CountryWide CONNECT with Andy Thompson & Sarah Perriam-Lampp is our daily rural show livestreamed from 11am-1pm. Visit country-wide.co.nz on how to watch/listen or download the CountryWide CONNECT mobile app, available on Apple iOS and Android.