Editorial: Up a creek?

Ever since the formation of the Primary Sector Climate Action Partnership, made up of 11 sector groups, as well as Māori and the Government, it has courted controversy and struggled to get farmer buy in.

The partnership’s He Waka Eke Noa (HWEN) current recommendations for mitigating agricultural emissions now appear to be up a creek without a paddle.

HWEN has struggled for farmer support from the very start. The partnership – especially the primary sector groups – have done a poor job in communicating with farmers. They have also been arrogant and dismissive of ongoing farmer concerns.

Beef+Lamb NZ and DairyNZ especially have been guilty of a ‘we know best’ attitude to farmer concerns and have also earned a reputation of being far too pliable to the current Government’s demands. It is clear industry leaders have lost the room.

Even an old, blind heading dog could have seen there was major trouble brewing when a group like Groundswell – that started from nowhere – managed to encourage tens of thousands of farmers out on the streets to protest, among other things, against HWEN. However, instead of taking note, industry leaders buried their heads in the sand and meekly parroted claims about the protest ‘not representing the farming sector’.

Now the latest uproar comes from a group of sheep and beef farmers who have penned an open letter to Beef+Lamb NZ directors demanding they make changes to the current He Waka Eke Noa (HWEN) recommendations or face a vote of no confidence.

It goes to show how just badly HWEN is going down when some of this letter’s signatories were supposedly ‘consulted’ about it before the current recommendations were made.

No one ever said the job of getting agreement on how the agricultural sector mitigates its emissions would be easy. However, the discontent, confusion and anger farmers are current feeling over HWEN means there is still much more work to do.

It is time that industry leaders stood up, both metaphorically and literally, to the Government and helped farmers get on board the waka.