William Rolleston: Facing today s challenges

Dr William Rolleston

My role as vice president of the World Farmers Organisation (WFO) gives me the opportunity to talk to many different farmers from across the world.

Their situations are very different, from the large operations in the Americas with access to all the machinery of modern agriculture, to the African farmer on less than a hectare of land still under the tyranny of the hand hoe.

What strikes me is that there are many themes common to all farmers around the world. In particular, farmers worry about how they will increase production and productivity while reducing their environmental footprint, how they will build resilience - particularly in a changing climate - and how they can get access to all the tools available in agriculture.

For the Africans it is as simple as the revolution in productivity a tractor would bring, for New Zealand farmers it is access in a small market to the latest developments in plant and pest control.

The WFO adopted a new policy on climate change which is very similar to what Federated Farmers has been saying for the past few years. That is, if we are to play our part in feeding a growing population and at the same time do our bit for climate change, we must continue to improve our productivity and increase the carbon efficiency of our products.

There is also a growing recognition that a focus on absolute reduction in biological emissions, particularly methane, is not justified and will not lead to buy-in from developing countries.

Modern technologies - be they digital, biological or physical (such as water storage and reticulation) - help us build resilience in the face of the many uncertainties agriculture faces.

As the TPP talks move toward their hopeful conclusion, the message that free trade also builds economic resilience is one we are continuing to communicate.

Resilience was the theme of our recent very successful national conference and of this edition of The National Farming Review.

This year has brought challenges for agriculture on both the climatic and economic fronts but I am hopeful the TPP negotiations and the climate change talks in Paris later this year will bring us some more positive certainty in an uncertain world.