NZ Herald
  • Home
  • Latest news
  • Herald NOW
  • Video
  • New Zealand
  • Sport
  • World
  • Business
  • Entertainment
  • Podcasts
  • Quizzes
  • Opinion
  • Lifestyle
  • Travel
  • Viva
  • Weather

Subscriptions

  • Herald Premium
  • Viva Premium
  • The Listener
  • BusinessDesk

Sections

  • Latest news
  • New Zealand
    • All New Zealand
    • Crime
    • Politics
    • Education
    • Open Justice
    • Scam Update
  • Herald NOW
  • On The Up
  • World
    • All World
    • Australia
    • Asia
    • UK
    • United States
    • Middle East
    • Europe
    • Pacific
  • Business
    • All Business
    • MarketsSharesCurrencyCommoditiesStock TakesCrypto
    • Markets with Madison
    • Media Insider
    • Business analysis
    • Personal financeKiwiSaverInterest ratesTaxInvestment
    • EconomyInflationGDPOfficial cash rateEmployment
    • Small business
    • Business reportsMood of the BoardroomProject AucklandSustainable business and financeCapital markets reportAgribusiness reportInfrastructure reportDynamic business
    • Deloitte Top 200 Awards
    • CompaniesAged CareAgribusinessAirlinesBanking and financeConstructionEnergyFreight and logisticsHealthcareManufacturingMedia and MarketingRetailTelecommunicationsTourism
  • Opinion
    • All Opinion
    • Analysis
    • Editorials
    • Business analysis
    • Premium opinion
    • Letters to the editor
  • Politics
  • Sport
    • All Sport
    • OlympicsParalympics
    • RugbySuper RugbyNPCAll BlacksBlack FernsRugby sevensSchool rugby
    • CricketBlack CapsWhite Ferns
    • Racing
    • NetballSilver Ferns
    • LeagueWarriorsNRL
    • FootballWellington PhoenixAuckland FCAll WhitesFootball FernsEnglish Premier League
    • GolfNZ Open
    • MotorsportFormula 1
    • Boxing
    • UFC
    • BasketballNBABreakersTall BlacksTall Ferns
    • Tennis
    • Cycling
    • Athletics
    • SailingAmerica's CupSailGP
    • Rowing
  • Lifestyle
    • All Lifestyle
    • Viva - Food, fashion & beauty
    • Society Insider
    • Royals
    • Sex & relationships
    • Food & drinkRecipesRecipe collectionsRestaurant reviewsRestaurant bookings
    • Health & wellbeing
    • Fashion & beauty
    • Pets & animals
    • The Selection - Shop the trendsShop fashionShop beautyShop entertainmentShop giftsShop home & living
    • Milford's Investing Place
  • Entertainment
    • All Entertainment
    • TV
    • MoviesMovie reviews
    • MusicMusic reviews
    • BooksBook reviews
    • Culture
    • ReviewsBook reviewsMovie reviewsMusic reviewsRestaurant reviews
  • Travel
    • All Travel
    • News
    • New ZealandNorthlandAucklandWellingtonCanterburyOtago / QueenstownNelson-TasmanBest NZ beaches
    • International travelAustraliaPacific IslandsEuropeUKUSAAfricaAsia
    • Rail holidays
    • Cruise holidays
    • Ski holidays
    • Luxury travel
    • Adventure travel
  • Kāhu Māori news
  • Environment
    • All Environment
    • Our Green Future
  • Talanoa Pacific news
  • Property
    • All Property
    • Property Insider
    • Interest rates tracker
    • Residential property listings
    • Commercial property listings
  • Health
  • Technology
    • All Technology
    • AI
    • Social media
  • Rural
    • All Rural
    • Dairy farming
    • Sheep & beef farming
    • Horticulture
    • Animal health
    • Rural business
    • Rural life
    • Rural technology
    • Opinion
    • Audio & podcasts
  • Weather forecasts
    • All Weather forecasts
    • Kaitaia
    • Whangārei
    • Dargaville
    • Auckland
    • Thames
    • Tauranga
    • Hamilton
    • Whakatāne
    • Rotorua
    • Tokoroa
    • Te Kuiti
    • Taumaranui
    • Taupō
    • Gisborne
    • New Plymouth
    • Napier
    • Hastings
    • Dannevirke
    • Whanganui
    • Palmerston North
    • Levin
    • Paraparaumu
    • Masterton
    • Wellington
    • Motueka
    • Nelson
    • Blenheim
    • Westport
    • Reefton
    • Kaikōura
    • Greymouth
    • Hokitika
    • Christchurch
    • Ashburton
    • Timaru
    • Wānaka
    • Oamaru
    • Queenstown
    • Dunedin
    • Gore
    • Invercargill
  • Meet the journalists
  • Promotions & competitions
  • OneRoof property listings
  • Driven car news

Puzzles & Quizzes

  • Puzzles
    • All Puzzles
    • Sudoku
    • Code Cracker
    • Crosswords
    • Cryptic crossword
    • Wordsearch
  • Quizzes
    • All Quizzes
    • Morning quiz
    • Afternoon quiz
    • Sports quiz

Regions

  • Northland
    • All Northland
    • Far North
    • Kaitaia
    • Kerikeri
    • Kaikohe
    • Bay of Islands
    • Whangarei
    • Dargaville
    • Kaipara
    • Mangawhai
  • Auckland
  • Waikato
    • All Waikato
    • Hamilton
    • Coromandel & Hauraki
    • Matamata & Piako
    • Cambridge
    • Te Awamutu
    • Tokoroa & South Waikato
    • Taupō & Tūrangi
  • Bay of Plenty
    • All Bay of Plenty
    • Katikati
    • Tauranga
    • Mount Maunganui
    • Pāpāmoa
    • Te Puke
    • Whakatāne
  • Rotorua
  • Hawke's Bay
    • All Hawke's Bay
    • Napier
    • Hastings
    • Havelock North
    • Central Hawke's Bay
    • Wairoa
  • Taranaki
    • All Taranaki
    • Stratford
    • New Plymouth
    • Hāwera
  • Manawatū - Whanganui
    • All Manawatū - Whanganui
    • Whanganui
    • Palmerston North
    • Manawatū
    • Tararua
    • Horowhenua
  • Wellington
    • All Wellington
    • Kapiti
    • Wairarapa
    • Upper Hutt
    • Lower Hutt
  • Nelson & Tasman
    • All Nelson & Tasman
    • Motueka
    • Nelson
    • Tasman
  • Marlborough
  • West Coast
  • Canterbury
    • All Canterbury
    • Kaikōura
    • Christchurch
    • Ashburton
    • Timaru
  • Otago
    • All Otago
    • Oamaru
    • Dunedin
    • Balclutha
    • Alexandra
    • Queenstown
    • Wanaka
  • Southland
    • All Southland
    • Invercargill
    • Gore
    • Stewart Island
  • Gisborne

Media

  • Video
    • All Video
    • NZ news video
    • Herald NOW
    • Business news video
    • Politics news video
    • Sport video
    • World news video
    • Lifestyle video
    • Entertainment video
    • Travel video
    • Markets with Madison
    • Kea Kids news
  • Podcasts
    • All Podcasts
    • The Front Page
    • On the Tiles
    • Ask me Anything
    • The Little Things
  • Cartoons
  • Photo galleries
  • Today's Paper - E-editions
  • Photo sales
  • Classifieds

NZME Network

  • Advertise with NZME
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • BusinessDesk
  • Newstalk ZB
  • Sunlive
  • ZM
  • The Hits
  • Coast
  • Radio Hauraki
  • The Alternative Commentary Collective
  • Gold
  • Flava
  • iHeart Radio
  • Hokonui
  • Radio Wanaka
  • iHeartCountry New Zealand
  • Restaurant Hub
  • NZME Events

SubscribeSign In
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Home / Business

Pattrick Smellie: Pressure on Jacinda Ardern over water quality amid farmer well-being concern

By Pattrick Smellie
BusinessDesk·
7 Nov, 2019 04:41 AM5 mins to read

Subscribe to listen

Access to Herald Premium articles require a Premium subscription. Subscribe now to listen.
Already a subscriber?  Sign in here

Listening to articles is free for open-access content—explore other articles or learn more about text-to-speech.
‌
Save

    Share this article

    Reminder, this is a Premium article and requires a subscription to read.

A growing number of farmers are feeling massive personal pressure from several directions. Photo / File

A growing number of farmers are feeling massive personal pressure from several directions. Photo / File

COMMENT

Suddenly, farmers' mental health is in the news again.

It's not sensationalist or alarmist. It's a fact.

A growing number of farmers are feeling massive personal pressure from several directions, with the greatest source of that pressure being felt as the Government's agenda to make agriculture contribute to cleaner water and climate change action.

READ MORE:
• 'Farmers barely covering interest payments' - Westpac boss
• Livestock prices are keeping black ink on farmers' bank statements
• Thrown under the tractor: Farmers protest sweeping Government water clean-up plan
• Pattrick Smellie: Waterways push will change farming

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

It may not be totally rational. Global prices for our key agricultural commodities are currently high and include a very healthy-looking dairy payout in the season ahead. Export returns are further assisted by a weak Kiwi dollar.

Environmental groups would claim – fairly some cases, absurdly in others – that farmers aren't being asked to do all that much.

Factors beyond government policies have also shaken the sector.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Fonterra's farmers are shook up by the scale of the co-operative's losses and desperately want the new leadership, under chief executive Miles Hurrell, to work. They know it will take a while and that the history saps optimism.

Some of their fears stem from a fundamental problem with the New Zealand farming business model, which capitalises future earnings into the price of land.

Discover more

Business

Smellie: Wellington airport and the Fascist Tube

23 Oct 04:00 PM
Business

Should directors who ignore climate change risks keep their jobs?

31 Oct 04:39 AM
Business

Comment: An alternative view on the crucifixion of Twyford

30 Oct 10:57 PM
Business

Why now for China's deal upgrade with NZ?

04 Nov 07:27 PM

That makes New Zealand farmland far more expensive than it would be if capital gains were taxed when farms change hands, and requires more borrowing as a result.

The proposal for a capital gains tax, despite now being dead, was the catalyst for many current farm owners to become afraid of what this Government might do.

Meanwhile, banks collectively are raising the drawbridge on new farm lending, making the capital-heavy farming business model less sustainable, anyway.

Add in the unknown but presumably substantial costs of on-farm investments to meet new climate change and freshwater clean-up requirements, and it looks even more unsustainable.

For many, meeting those requirements will require a sympathetic bank manager. What if new bank lending is harder and more expensive to get, farmers are asking. Can I continue to farm?

For most good farmers, this is not an issue of dodging their responsibilities, although there are still plenty of Luddites out there too.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Most know that the long-term outcome of those investments should be more productive, profitable farms that pollute waterways far less, drive down their greenhouse gas emissions, and create products that increasingly picky high-value customers will see as ethically acceptable.

In the short-term, however, it just looks like too high a hill to climb for many farmers, with reports multiplying about the number of farmers in different regions who are said to be on "suicide watch".

Set aside as irrelevant whether a kind of collective hysteria or despair might be taking hold here.

For a Government determined to make a generational change in farming practice for environmental reasons, and that has promised to make that change in a just and equitable manner, it matters only that the phenomenon is real.

Fonterra's farmers are shook up by the scale of the company's losses and desperately want the new leadership to work. Photo / File
Fonterra's farmers are shook up by the scale of the company's losses and desperately want the new leadership to work. Photo / File

That is a huge problem particularly for this Government, which has governed on a promise to prioritise '"well-being" and not to traumatise communities with Rogernomics-style policy blitzkriegs.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern's mantras since election have been her "wellbeing" agenda commitment to a "just transition" that brings people along rather than tramples them on the way through.

In short, the pressure of threatened policy change has become a legitimate wellbeing and just transition issue for rural communities.

That's why, for all the accusations of "selling out" to farming leaders on pricing methane and nitrogen emissions, Ardern took that deal.

It's also why she must be concerned by economic analysis for DairyNZ about the potential impact on farming if the Government fully implements its current proposals for freshwater clean-up.

The difference between a shift in the right direction and a major change in freshwater quality is in the region of $5 billion a year to the size of the economy by 2050, the Sense Partners analysis says.

That's still less than 1 per cent of GDP, but it's concentrated in just a few parts of the country. A 24 per cent reduction in current dairy production is forecast – an achievable if painful transition, as evidenced by land use change caused by the 1980s Rogernomics reforms.

The key to whether costs are manageable or potentially unmanageable is the treatment of phosphorous and nitrogen nutrient run-off, according to Sense Partners, and this is clearly where a compromise could emerge. It would still be a challenging transition for farmers, but also mean slower progress on cleaner freshwater.

Whether National would play as nicely on such a water deal as it did over the climate change deal remains to be seen. Its leader, Simon Bridges, can afford to float beneficiary-bashing policies, but would a responsible future Prime Minister exploit farmers' genuine emotional and financial fragility for political gain?

For Ardern, compromise on water pollution represents a greater political challenge than the deal with farmers on climate change policy.

Notwithstanding the rise of Extinction Rebellion, school strikes and the rest, there is an even more deep-seated public appetite for this Government to take action on dirty waterways than on climate change.

Any substantial backdown on that expectation is not a political option.

Save

    Share this article

    Reminder, this is a Premium article and requires a subscription to read.

Latest from Business

Premium
Shares

Market close: Fisher & Paykel Healthcare helps NZX up over 1%

01 Jul 05:48 AM
Business|companies

NZ Super Fund-backed Kaingaroa Timberlands expands with Waikato land purchase

01 Jul 05:43 AM
Premium
Tourism

New heights: Skyline Enterprises' pre-tax profit doubles to $61m

01 Jul 05:10 AM

Audi offers a sporty spin on city driving with the A3 Sportback and S3 Sportback

sponsored
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Latest from Business

Premium
Market close: Fisher & Paykel Healthcare helps NZX up over 1%

Market close: Fisher & Paykel Healthcare helps NZX up over 1%

01 Jul 05:48 AM

Shares in Skellerup Holdings ended the day 5.1% higher at $4.95.

NZ Super Fund-backed Kaingaroa Timberlands expands with Waikato land purchase

NZ Super Fund-backed Kaingaroa Timberlands expands with Waikato land purchase

01 Jul 05:43 AM
Premium
New heights: Skyline Enterprises' pre-tax profit doubles to $61m

New heights: Skyline Enterprises' pre-tax profit doubles to $61m

01 Jul 05:10 AM
Premium
Watch: 'Offensive to girls' - why The Warehouse has been told to remove this TV ad

Watch: 'Offensive to girls' - why The Warehouse has been told to remove this TV ad

01 Jul 05:04 AM
Gold demand soars amid global turmoil
sponsored

Gold demand soars amid global turmoil

NZ Herald
  • About NZ Herald
  • Meet the journalists
  • Newsletters
  • Classifieds
  • Help & support
  • Contact us
  • House rules
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of use
  • Competition terms & conditions
  • Our use of AI
Subscriber Services
  • NZ Herald e-editions
  • Daily puzzles & quizzes
  • Manage your digital subscription
  • Manage your print subscription
  • Subscribe to the NZ Herald newspaper
  • Subscribe to Herald Premium
  • Gift a subscription
  • Subscriber FAQs
  • Subscription terms & conditions
  • Promotions and subscriber benefits
NZME Network
  • The New Zealand Herald
  • The Northland Age
  • The Northern Advocate
  • Waikato Herald
  • Bay of Plenty Times
  • Rotorua Daily Post
  • Hawke's Bay Today
  • Whanganui Chronicle
  • Viva
  • NZ Listener
  • Newstalk ZB
  • BusinessDesk
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • iHeart Radio
  • Restaurant Hub
NZME
  • About NZME
  • NZME careers
  • Advertise with NZME
  • Digital self-service advertising
  • Book your classified ad
  • Photo sales
  • NZME Events
  • © Copyright 2025 NZME Publishing Limited
TOP