Let's turn back the Doomsday Clock

The Doomsday Clock is set at three minutes to midnight but latest headlines seem to suggest farming is even closer to the last stroke.

So the Doomsday Clock remains at three minutes to midnight for 2016, the same time it showed last year.

Great; a theoretical three minutes away from the apocalypse, according to the gatekeepers of the clock who have been updating us on a yearly basis since 1947.

For those who don't know, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists was set up in 1945 by University of Chicago scientists who helped develop the first atomic weapons.

The clock followed two years later and is upgraded on an annual basis by the bulletin's science and security board, in consultation with its Board of Sponsors.

The closest the clock has ever come to midnight was two minutes away, back in 1953 when the US and the Soviets were playing a game of one-upmanship with hydrogen bombs.

Last year they moved it to three minutes, citing unchecked climate change, global nuclear weapons and outsized nuclear weapons arsenals.

All this, they said, posed extraordinary and undeniable threats to the continued existence of humanity. Nothing's changed this year.

Reading headlines in New Zealand news publications recently, especially in agriculture, you'd think our Doomsday Clock is set on the stroke of midnight.

Dairy prices are rubbish, the forecast payout is horribly inadequate, sheepmeat prices are languishing, land prices are down, farmers are walking off their land in droves, rural depression is on the rise, rustling is out of control, not enough rain, too much rain, not to mention El Nino.

The language of agriculture in the media is also very heavily tilted towards the negative.

A quick read through a random selection of stories this week almost had me heading to the top of the nearest building.

'Down', 'depression', 'negative', 'disappoint', 'cautious', 'pessimistic', 'lower, 'disease', 'disaster', 'average' - this was just a glance, a snapshot.

Those outside the industry must wonder why the hell anyone would bother getting into it. It's also doing nothing to bridge the urban-rural divide.

But talking to those with skin in the game, it appears to me, sadly, this is an accepted view of rural existence.

This is a disappointing aspect of New Zealand life that has gradually been occurring over a relatively short period of time.

When was it that urban New Zealand started to look upon its urban siblings with a suspicious, slightly embarrassed, eye?

Most want to help devour the wealth afforded by our prowess in agriculture, so long as it stays in the background and doesn't pollute our ideal of ourselves on the world stage.

There are good, sometimes great, things happening in New Zealand agriculture, but those at the coalface are often finding themselves having to defend their profession.

The result is a natural inclination to hunker down while inadvertently widening the gulf with the urban population.

There's nothing wrong with being proud of what you do but there's a thin line separating that pride from exclusivity; it can, in other words, become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

So in the face of all this negativity, The Farming Show has decided to take a lead in uniting us all under one banner - he show is, after all, listened to by both rural and urban citizens alike.

However, we need to start internally.

Online editor Hanoi Jane is urging Jamie Mackay and I to 'workshop our feelings' to try to get more of a positive vibe going on in the studio.

We all need to do our bit.

I've just had surgery on my back so my usually cheerful disposition may be temporarily halted but, with some positive encouragement and a lot of patience, I think Jamie will eventually be able to turn things around, just before the clock strikes 12.