Election 2020: New Zealand First lays out plan for 'dynamic and sustainable' future for farming

NZ First leader Winston Peters announced his party's agriculture policy today. Photo / Jason Walls

New Zealand First wants to create a "dynamic and sustainable future" for farming in New Zealand, leveraging the country's brand as "premium" to the world.

The party has a number of ways it plans to put New Zealand-produced food on the world's map, including bolstering the number of farms across the country.

New Zealand First leader Winston Peters said agriculture is still one of the "main pillars of New Zealand's economy" and the country's future lies in "value, not volume".

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"New Zealand's food provenance story is an essential foundation for positioning our products at the premium end of consumer choice to extract maximum value."

One of the ways NZ First plans to extract this value is through the New Zealand First Farms initiative.

This programme, according to the party's policy, would help those new to the industry to buy a farm, with help from Crown-owned Landcorp – a State-owned farming organisation with close to $2 billion in assets.

NZ First wants to leverage that balance sheet to help new entrants towards farm ownership.

The party's policy does now, however, go into detail about how this would be done.

But it does note that while new regulations to address environmental issues are essential, they must also ensure best practice standards are met at scale.

Another key part of NZ First's agriculture policy is based around the premise that "one size does not fit all" when it comes to farming practices around the country.

Peters cites what he says are "impractical details" around issues such as resowing dates, pugging definition and accuracy of mapping.

NZ First is promising to standardised all these regulations, to be brought together in the Farm Environment Plan, starting in the 2021/22 season.

Peters also notes that his party explicitly blocked tax on water while in Government – "[we] will continue to hold this position in any future government".

On water policy more generally: "New Zealand First supports a national stocktake of water storage projects to develop a 'Strategic Overview' to identify other projects across the country with a focus on areas such as Hawkes Bay, Central Otago, Marlborough and Northland".