Meat sector working on sustainability

The standards are being developed specifically for Greenlea, but also build on the farm assurance programme set up among a number of processors, Clark explained at an Environment Focus Field Day held by Beef + Lamb NZ at Te Opu farm in the Kaipara region.

He claimed Greenlea is “taking a lone path but dragging the others with us in relation to the environment and sustainability standards”.

To develop the standards it is working with ecologists and with 2014 Bay of Plenty Ballance Farm Environment Award winners Rick and John Burke who run a bull, beef and sheep farm. They have been in the ‘environment space’ for 25 years.

“We are asking Rick and John to tell us what they do that they consider sustainable, and then we measure that against what the local council is telling us farmers need to do and basing that against, say, what is the government doing with emissions trading? and that type of thing.

“We are close to developing a set of sustainability standards.”

Clark, who has been involved in the Red Meat Profit Partnership (RMPP) for three years, says soon the social licence to farm and the ‘permission’ to continue some standard practices (such as throwing weedkiller around to get rid of pest plants) will come into question.

“That’s coming for everybody -- both from regulation and from public perception.”

Recently Clark attended an event in Australia with about 300-400 farmers where a palm kernel importer showed convincingly through diagrams and charts that economically PKE is better. Nevertheless those at the event remained negative about PKE because of perception.

“The public perception is so strong that you could put up all the facts and figures you like, but those people who are not farming and not using it and do not see the benefits just will not consider it a viable option.

“That is the sort of pressure that will gather momentum and along with regulation will soon dis-enable you to just go out and farm however you want,” Clark explains.

“In saying that, we believe NZ farmers are the greatest custodians environmentally of the land; everyone in this room does everything they can to benefit their land. Quite simply, if you don’t you are silly because that is how you make your money. We know that, but go a couple of hundred kilometres down the road and talk to anyone in Queen St and they won’t understand that.”

He says Greenlea is building a set of sustainability standards.

“If you choose to be in it we are also looking at the market which is something that has not really been considered or done previously.

“We are saying that if you do this there is a benefit at the far end because the customer will pay more for that story.”

The behind-the-farmgate story can be told.

“You can build a big enough story there: ‘this animal has been finished beautifully and sustainably, and meets a whole lot of standards independently -- third-party assured’. People want to pay for that.”

Thirty-five million people is the number we can feed outside NZ, Clark says. “No matter what you put in front of someone, there is always that rich person who wants to have the best piece of meat -- the best burger, the best meat patty, the best stir-fry, etc.”

Greenlea is doing a lot of work on that, using further work done through RMPP and Beef + Lamb NZ with the NZ story.