Straggle Muster 156 - 20/5/2005
Phil Reid, Ballance Agri-Nutrients Technical Sales Representative
Listening to the news of the alleged Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD) outbreak on Waiheke Island a couple of weeks ago set me to thinking about the impact of this or a similar exotic disease on the viability of farming in NZ especially for young people if this ever occurred.
My first thoughts were one of it seeming a bit surreal. This may be due to fact that we have never experienced this sort of thing in the past. Watching the FMD outbreak in the UK a couple of years on TV would be the closest most NZ farmers hopefully ever get to this disease. I then started thinking 'hey if this is real where does it leave Ros and I on Benio Station'. We purchased our 200 acre property almost 2 years ago, mortgaged to the eyeballs relying on 2 off-farm incomes to get us started into agriculture. Two years down the track the mortgage is down to chin level and we are not so reliant on 2 off-farm incomes. However if this outbreak turned out to be true would Ballance Agri-Nutrients still want their number one rep in Eastern Southland and West Otago. Farmers who have had to slaughter all their stock don't need grass and certainly don't need fertiliser. Movement restrictions would also curtail our daily activities on farms.
Mortgage payments chew up one of our off farm incomes and I can't imagine the bank saying 'Phil, don't worry about paying interest for a couple of years till farming gets back on its feet'. Farm prices would plummet, farmers equity built up over years of hard work could be gone in a matter of weeks. Farmers in strong equity positions would survive but all the new entrants to farming namely highly indebted young farmers would be lost to an industry already facing the challenge of getting young people into farm ownership. When and if things came right who would be the landowners and farmers of NZ's future?
When it was finally over and farmers were starting to restock their properties the money for buying stock would have priority over money for buying fertiliser. The fertiliser industry could be worth $2 billion dollars plus currently and employs hundreds if not thousands of people directly and indirectly (transports/spreaders etc). Start adding in the effect on the meat industry, the dairy industry, the rural servicing industry and all their employees and tens of billions may start to cover the cost to the NZ economy
The full ramifications to farming and the NZ economy of a FMD outbreak hopefully are only ever measured by hypothesis and speculation because finding out first hand the breadth and depth of the pain to the NZ economy and all who participate in it doesn't bear thinking about it.
Long term pain and suffering should be reserved for the exclusive pleasure of the 'nutcase' (I'm being polite) who started the hoax in the first place
Phil Reid
Ballance Agri-Nutrients and Benio farmer
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