Thank you for the opportunity to comment on this significant issue. I am an Associate Professor in the Department of Environmenal Management at Lincoln University (New Zealand) which is one of the oldest agriculture tertiary institutions in the British commonwealth. We pride ourselves on producing young farmers and associated land based industries (including planning landscape architecture and tourism)
While the approach to your report is generally sound and approipriately emphasises developing country rurality and farming, I consider that there are three matters that need to be brought into the framework of the discussion that are currently missing entirely or are very lightly touched on: the biophysical environment and related perceptions of the food production systems; issues facing developed country food production systems; and the labour linkages between developing and developed country food production systems. I also wish to share a couple of attempts being made in New Zealand to address these issues, I suspect they are not unique.
1. Environmental issues: In New Zealand the adverse effects ot our water quality and quantity caused by farm production systems has become a major political issue that no party can ignore. As significantly, the campaigns (such as the dirty dairying campaign ) to raise the nation's awareness of the damage being done by rapid expansion of dairying and irrigation to our rivers and freshwater aquifers has created a stigma around dairy farming (our major export earner) (Holland 2014) that has reached the point where some of our highly successful dairy farmers are embarrassed to say what they do for a living when at socila events. The negative image of farming appears to be a factor in youth not wishing to venture into this area. This is now receiving added impetus by the accepted threat of climate change and the contirbution our agriculture industry (through methane producing animas) is having on climate. Added to this is the increasing level of stress and the associated high suicide rate of farmers (Holland 2013). Additional stress is beign created by environmental constraints to farming in an attempt to save and restore the freshwater resources . All in all farming does not have an attractive image for youth.
Response: In attempts to redress this image the Dairy industry has made a number of environmentally positive TV advertisements of environmentally friendly farming usually featuring younger farmers and farming familiies, and holds nationally advertised open days when people can come and visit (carefully selected) farms. It and the farming sector generally has emphasised the need for environmental management of farm land as part of being a 'good farmer' and consider peer pressure has moved from being about being the 'highest producer' to being the 'best land/water/biodiveristy manager' while still being profitable. National industry awards for most environmentally friendly farmer of the year receive wide publicity and advertorial boosting. Environmentally friendly ceriuficaiton schemes like the one run by Waitrose are promoted and in one region the local authority charged with environmental managment (Waikato regional council) operates a 'green tick' certification that was developed in concert with farmers. The farming industry has joined with local government on collaboratively developing environmental planning rules and software (eg Overseer) to help calculate the acceptable loss of nutrients to groundwater and rivers. The fencing off of rivers and associated replanting with indigneous biodiversity for habitat restoration and protection of water from overland runoff of nutrients and sediment are now commonly required and research has shown these are having an effect on water quality (see for instance Collins et al 2013). Biodiversity management plans and Green house gas modelling at the individual farm scale are in the pipeline (these are for farms of 20ha or more usually, but also as small as 10ha in some places, including my own smallholding sheep and crop farm). A problem with these environmental requirements, as noted above, is the financial and time pressure they place on farmers and the associated stress. While large corporate farms can cope and thrive, the smaller scale farmers are struggling and this appears to be adverselky affecting the interest of their children in farming - better incomes in less stressful urban jobs (where the adverse environmental effects are played down) beckon. This environmental image isue is a major problem for attracting youth ot farming.
2) Developed country issue: The increased mechanisation and high technological nature of farming and its efect on job creation in developed countries was identified two decades ago by our then Prime Minister Helen Clark in a speech on future employment where she labelled Farming as a 'Sunset industry' - this caused huge furore and anger largely because the context in which she was speaking (the future for growth in employment) was overlooked. However, the issue holds true that high mechanisation and high tech have changed the nature of work and reduced the need for labour. While on the one hand this is positive, on the other it means that there are not the same openings for people to enter the industry, without a good education and technical skills. Consequently we have seen a big increase in courses devoted to food science - testing the quality and safety of food and ways to innovatively use or develop new food products and meet or create new market demand. This is shifting the area for talented youth away from the field and into the laboratory - our Masters in Food science and Innovation have rapidly grown with large numbers of students from developing countries. This points also to the higher demands from developed country consumers for high quality environmentally friendly food - this is something I believe developing countries need to recognise and plan for - their growing middle classes will demand quality also and so in encouraging youth into agriculture or finding employment for youth in food production this is an area that will grow, but possibly at the expense of having jobs for the poorly educated.
Response: As noted, Lincoln University has developed new Masters degrees and programmes, but we are also actively involved in partnering with Universities in other countries to build their in country expertise. Locally, Lincoln University has established partnerships with a number of high schools and some primary schools to support agricultural programmes and school farms with advice and educational support. Although I have seen no analyses i feel that this approach is helping make farming seem more attractive to youth. We have also established a Childrens university to draw in young primary school childrent to the university and aid them in understanding scentific approaches to manaigng land and the environment. This is in its early stages and we have yet to see the outcomes. We have also established an interdisciplinary first year course LINC 101 that is designed to introduce all our students to the integrated systems approach to food production, environmental management and the lifestyles we wish to lead (eg recreation and tourism). Farms are also diversifying their incme sources to incldue tourism activities which offer a different and more socially accpetable future for farming operations that we expect may help retain youth on farms and make farming more understood by non-farmers (again no analyses to support my feelings for how this is working).
3) Labour linkages: This is moving somewhat outside my area of expertise, but simply noting that the role of using migrant farm worker labour with developing country people working seasonally on developed country farms, orchards etc is significant in the South East Pacific region. Domestic labour is insufficient to harvest orchard and horticultural crops in New Zealand and this shortfall is being met by temporary migrant labour from the Pacific Islands. I think the implications of this are quite variable and worthy of further investigation - does it lead to a transfer of farm knowledge appropriate to home country settings? Does it lead to farming being a more attractive industry if you know you can spend part of your time in a devleoped country earning more money to support your home farming family and rural community? or is it leading to false expectations, labour exploitation, lower labour wages (in the developed country due to the ability to use migants to avoid paying wages at a level that would attract the local youth back)? Someone may have investigated this already, but I think it warrants inclusion in your considerations.
Wishing you the best
Hamish Rennie
References:
Collins, K.E.; Doscher C.; Rennie, H.G.; and J.G. Ross 2013 “The effectiveness of riparian ‘restoration’ on water quality – a case study of lowland streams in Canterbury, New Zealand” Restoration Ecology 21(1):40-48
Holland, P. (2013) Why New Zealand dairy farms are not socially sustainable Lincoln Planning Review 5(1-2): 43-47
Holland, P. (2014) The Dirty Dairying Campaign and the Clean Streams Accord Lincoln Planning Review 6(1-2): 63-69.
Thank you for the opportunity to comment on this significant issue. I am an Associate Professor in the Department of Environmenal Management at Lincoln University (New Zealand) which is one of the oldest agriculture tertiary institutions in the British commonwealth. We pride ourselves on producing young farmers and associated land based industries (including planning landscape architecture and tourism)
While the approach to your report is generally sound and approipriately emphasises developing country rurality and farming, I consider that there are three matters that need to be brought into the framework of the discussion that are currently missing entirely or are very lightly touched on: the biophysical environment and related perceptions of the food production systems; issues facing developed country food production systems; and the labour linkages between developing and developed country food production systems. I also wish to share a couple of attempts being made in New Zealand to address these issues, I suspect they are not unique.
1. Environmental issues: In New Zealand the adverse effects ot our water quality and quantity caused by farm production systems has become a major political issue that no party can ignore. As significantly, the campaigns (such as the dirty dairying campaign ) to raise the nation's awareness of the damage being done by rapid expansion of dairying and irrigation to our rivers and freshwater aquifers has created a stigma around dairy farming (our major export earner) (Holland 2014) that has reached the point where some of our highly successful dairy farmers are embarrassed to say what they do for a living when at socila events. The negative image of farming appears to be a factor in youth not wishing to venture into this area. This is now receiving added impetus by the accepted threat of climate change and the contirbution our agriculture industry (through methane producing animas) is having on climate. Added to this is the increasing level of stress and the associated high suicide rate of farmers (Holland 2013). Additional stress is beign created by environmental constraints to farming in an attempt to save and restore the freshwater resources . All in all farming does not have an attractive image for youth.
Response: In attempts to redress this image the Dairy industry has made a number of environmentally positive TV advertisements of environmentally friendly farming usually featuring younger farmers and farming familiies, and holds nationally advertised open days when people can come and visit (carefully selected) farms. It and the farming sector generally has emphasised the need for environmental management of farm land as part of being a 'good farmer' and consider peer pressure has moved from being about being the 'highest producer' to being the 'best land/water/biodiveristy manager' while still being profitable. National industry awards for most environmentally friendly farmer of the year receive wide publicity and advertorial boosting. Environmentally friendly ceriuficaiton schemes like the one run by Waitrose are promoted and in one region the local authority charged with environmental managment (Waikato regional council) operates a 'green tick' certification that was developed in concert with farmers. The farming industry has joined with local government on collaboratively developing environmental planning rules and software (eg Overseer) to help calculate the acceptable loss of nutrients to groundwater and rivers. The fencing off of rivers and associated replanting with indigneous biodiversity for habitat restoration and protection of water from overland runoff of nutrients and sediment are now commonly required and research has shown these are having an effect on water quality (see for instance Collins et al 2013). Biodiversity management plans and Green house gas modelling at the individual farm scale are in the pipeline (these are for farms of 20ha or more usually, but also as small as 10ha in some places, including my own smallholding sheep and crop farm). A problem with these environmental requirements, as noted above, is the financial and time pressure they place on farmers and the associated stress. While large corporate farms can cope and thrive, the smaller scale farmers are struggling and this appears to be adverselky affecting the interest of their children in farming - better incomes in less stressful urban jobs (where the adverse environmental effects are played down) beckon. This environmental image isue is a major problem for attracting youth ot farming.
2) Developed country issue: The increased mechanisation and high technological nature of farming and its efect on job creation in developed countries was identified two decades ago by our then Prime Minister Helen Clark in a speech on future employment where she labelled Farming as a 'Sunset industry' - this caused huge furore and anger largely because the context in which she was speaking (the future for growth in employment) was overlooked. However, the issue holds true that high mechanisation and high tech have changed the nature of work and reduced the need for labour. While on the one hand this is positive, on the other it means that there are not the same openings for people to enter the industry, without a good education and technical skills. Consequently we have seen a big increase in courses devoted to food science - testing the quality and safety of food and ways to innovatively use or develop new food products and meet or create new market demand. This is shifting the area for talented youth away from the field and into the laboratory - our Masters in Food science and Innovation have rapidly grown with large numbers of students from developing countries. This points also to the higher demands from developed country consumers for high quality environmentally friendly food - this is something I believe developing countries need to recognise and plan for - their growing middle classes will demand quality also and so in encouraging youth into agriculture or finding employment for youth in food production this is an area that will grow, but possibly at the expense of having jobs for the poorly educated.
Response: As noted, Lincoln University has developed new Masters degrees and programmes, but we are also actively involved in partnering with Universities in other countries to build their in country expertise. Locally, Lincoln University has established partnerships with a number of high schools and some primary schools to support agricultural programmes and school farms with advice and educational support. Although I have seen no analyses i feel that this approach is helping make farming seem more attractive to youth. We have also established a Childrens university to draw in young primary school childrent to the university and aid them in understanding scentific approaches to manaigng land and the environment. This is in its early stages and we have yet to see the outcomes. We have also established an interdisciplinary first year course LINC 101 that is designed to introduce all our students to the integrated systems approach to food production, environmental management and the lifestyles we wish to lead (eg recreation and tourism). Farms are also diversifying their incme sources to incldue tourism activities which offer a different and more socially accpetable future for farming operations that we expect may help retain youth on farms and make farming more understood by non-farmers (again no analyses to support my feelings for how this is working).
3) Labour linkages: This is moving somewhat outside my area of expertise, but simply noting that the role of using migrant farm worker labour with developing country people working seasonally on developed country farms, orchards etc is significant in the South East Pacific region. Domestic labour is insufficient to harvest orchard and horticultural crops in New Zealand and this shortfall is being met by temporary migrant labour from the Pacific Islands. I think the implications of this are quite variable and worthy of further investigation - does it lead to a transfer of farm knowledge appropriate to home country settings? Does it lead to farming being a more attractive industry if you know you can spend part of your time in a devleoped country earning more money to support your home farming family and rural community? or is it leading to false expectations, labour exploitation, lower labour wages (in the developed country due to the ability to use migants to avoid paying wages at a level that would attract the local youth back)? Someone may have investigated this already, but I think it warrants inclusion in your considerations.
Wishing you the best
Hamish Rennie
References:
Collins, K.E.; Doscher C.; Rennie, H.G.; and J.G. Ross 2013 “The effectiveness of riparian ‘restoration’ on water quality – a case study of lowland streams in Canterbury, New Zealand” Restoration Ecology 21(1):40-48
Holland, P. (2013) Why New Zealand dairy farms are not socially sustainable Lincoln Planning Review 5(1-2): 43-47
Holland, P. (2014) The Dirty Dairying Campaign and the Clean Streams Accord Lincoln Planning Review 6(1-2): 63-69.