The news last week that INGKA Investments, part of the company that owns furniture retailer IKEA, had purchased Waikareao Station in Hawke’s Bay for just over $13 million is of concern.
The 1000 hectare “breeding and finishing farm” brings INGKA’s total forestry interests in New Zealand to almost 24,500ha.
That is a lot of land taken out of food production. It also represents a loss of control for NZ.
It comes on top of a recent Statistics NZ report that tells us that from 2011 to 2023 the total area of grassland excluding tussock fell by 12% or a massive 942,000ha. In my view that is unsustainable. Over the same period the total number of sheep fell by 22% or 6.8 million to a total of 24.4 million. That’s a far cry from the heady days of 1982 when we had 70 million sheep.
The number of beef cattle fell by 5% or 192,000 to 3.76 million. The total number of dairy cattle peaked in 2014. Since then the numbers have fallen by 12% or 813,000.
The land loss over that period of 942,000ha is equivalent to 15 Lake Taupōs. That loss can’t continue.
In addition, if you consider the loss of productive land between 2002 and 2012 the figure is 800,000ha, so in the past 21 years we’ve lost far too much productive land. Land that supports our economy.
If we add the number of sheep and beef cattle lost over the period 2011 to 2023, counting beef cattle at five stock units then we’ve lost 25.3 million stock units. Averaging a farm at 5000 stock units, that’s over 5000 sheep and beef farms. For dairy my estimate is 2500, so in a 12-year period we’ve lost around 7500 farms.
That’s around 7500 families plus farm workers, shearers, fencers, stock and merchandise agents, truck drivers, teachers, vets and doctors. It isn’t a complete list but it does outline the problem.
In addition we hear that between 2002 and 2019 land counted as highly productive but removed from food production increased 51%, from 225,394ha to 340,764ha. In Auckland the increase in urban sprawl into productive farmland increased 81% to 77,971ha.
Amazingly, in my view, Pukekohe horticulturalists aren’t able to afford to keep farming, such is the price of land there. That will have a major effect on the price of vegetables, particularly in Auckland.
If the crisis I’ve outlined is bad enough in itself, the reality is it’s worse when you incorporate the land purchased for forestry, specifically for carbon farming.
According to a Beef + Lamb report the amount of sheep and beef country lost to forestry over the past seven years is a staggering 175,000ha. I believe that figure is conservative.
My position is simple: New Zealand can’t continue to be the prosperous nation it is if we keep removing good land from food production. Our economy survives largely on the primary sector, which requires that land to support food production.
My concern is that the horse may have bolted. Once land has been removed from food production it is gone forever.
So what needs to be done?
There is a National Policy Statement (NPS) on Highly Productive Land that came into force in October 2022. Simply it covers Class 1, 2 and 3 land.
While the intention is good, however, I don’t think it will practically make a lot of difference for two reasons. The first is that it is up to local government to administer and, as we know, those processes are fraught.
The second is that you can drive a truck through a lot of the NPS.
For a start the areas where local government can take productive land for housing includes “if rezoning is required to provide sufficient development capacity to meet demand for housing or business land”. It then suggests that land can be rezoned if there are no other practical or feasible options for development.
It then suggests that “the environmental, social, cultural and economic benefits of rezoning outweigh the status quo”. That’s just crazy.
Hardly cast-iron guarantees that good land will remain in food production. In addition, according to my reading, Māori land is exempt from the NPS restrictions.
Further, as the pork industry pointed out, the NPS talks about land-based production. It believes that the Ministry for the Environment and local councils are saying that pig farming doesn’t qualify, which is ridiculous and confirms the ignorance of those institutions.
The problem I have is that the issue is here and now and must be fixed immediately for the good of the country. A woolly NPS, loosely administered, isn’t going to achieve that.
What we need is for our politicians to look at NZ’s long-term future, which is well past the next election.
I’m not holding my breath.
