KEY POINTS:
Recent rumblings show pressure is increasing for the Government to pull something out of the Budget "hat" for agricultural R&D funding.
National Party science spokesman Paul Hutchison and agriculture spokesman David Carter have criticised Labour for allegedly placing too little importance on agriculture and science.
Hutchison said Government funding for agricultural science through the Foundation for Research, Science and Technology dropped $13 million to $50 million last year. Carter claimed Agriculture Minister Jim Anderton had failed to deliver, despite arguing the importance of the primary sector.
In Hamilton, the Waikato Institute of Technology recently received $1 million of Tertiary Education Commission funding to work with the Waikato Innovation Park on an AgBio Innovators Academy, designed to accelerate agricultural biotechnology innovation from concept to the paddock or factory.
But park chief executive Derek Fairweather - while obviously grateful for the funding and praising Anderton's interest in the park's work - agreed the Government was not doing enough for agricultural science research through the foundation. "They're not funding enough R&D full stop."
He believed that "New Zealand has lost its sense of passion and desire for agriculture and agriculturally related technologies".
The economy was full of small and medium-sized enterprises and "to expect them to fund R&D is just not realistic", Fairweather said.
Both he and academy chairman David Hemara hoped Anderton would be able to deliver a significant lift in agricultural sector R&D assistance in May's Budget given that the minister appeared keen to help.
Meanwhile, AgResearch chief science strategist Stephen Goldson said achieving the organisation's ambitious goals for agriculture would depend on the extent to which people could accept emergent technologies - such as genetic modification - and whether Government and industry could be persuaded to spend more on R&D.
AgResearch said the total R&D investment was only 1.17 per cent of GDP, meaning this country lagged far behind the European Union, which was aiming for 3 per cent by 2010.
(Ironically, it was AgResearch that last year voluntarily handed over an extra $3 million in dividends to the Government, saying it might have a better immediate purpose for the money.)
National Party leader John Key also threw in his 2c worth last week during an overt pitch for the rural vote. With the rural sector worried about Government proposals for reducing agriculture's greenhouse gas emissions, Key argued for more state funding of research on emissions-reducing technology.
On the primary production sector's call for more Government R&D spending, a spokeswoman for Anderton said that - after receiving advice from producers - the Government was looking at what to do.
With Key and others making increases in various types of state R&D funding for primary producers something of a political credibility test, it will be interesting to see the size and shape of whatever "rabbit" Anderton and his Cabinet colleagues are able to pull out of the hat in May's Budget.
The competing pressures of increasing the rural sector's earnings - while protecting the environment in a range of ways - is truly a national challenge we need to rise to with a bit of collective magic.
And, given the ongoing economic and social importance of both agriculture and the environment, that magic needs to produce something of ongoing substance rather than just a passing illusion.
Green, green wine
New Zealand's wine industry - most famous for its whites - is making a big pitch to go even greener to help its marketing to more affluent and environmentally aware international consumers.
Industry body New Zealand Winegrowers has issued a draft sustainability policy position to grape growers and winemakers.
Its target is to have all New Zealand grapes and wine produced under independently-audited sustainability schemes by vintage 2012. Currently about 70 per cent of wine production is managed under Sustainable Winegrowing New Zealand rules.
NZ Winegrowers chief executive Philip Gregan says a genuine desire to protect the environment and a belief that sustainable practices will help produce more natural and characterful wines are part of the motivation for the push.
But he acknowledges it will also help marketing to the types of "top-end" consumers our wine is targeted at - consumers who are often concerned about ethical consumption.
"At the end of the market in which we play people are making lifestyle decisions."
They are prepared to pay more for wine that makes "a statement about who I am and the values that I hold to be important as a person", Gregan says.
He believes sustainability will become so important that those who don't practise it will be squeezed out of the international marketplace.
European trends
Waikato-based global dairy farmer and Fonterra director Mark Townshend believes that farm buying by new entrants to dairying could be made harder if New Zealand follows a European trend.
Speaking as a dairy farmer, he suggested large farm owners in Europe, who were no longer willing to farm themselves, were hanging on to their land rather than selling.
If that happens here, he says, leasing might have to be used more widely by new entrants to farming.
Townshend also felt that if families were no longer willing to farm their own land, this could push up the price of farm management wages.
Also of note was Townshend's prediction that the number of dairying units could drop from around 10,000 to 6000 within 10 years as the sector aggregated.
This trend could aggravate the redemption risk faced by Fonterra that allows farmers to cash in their shares.
If there are fewer farming units holding greater numbers of shares, this means the co-op would lose a greater proportion of its capital base every time a single unit opts out.
Redemption risk is one of the key things driving Fonterra's current review of its capital structure.
Powering down
A Southland study is suggesting the dairy industry could save many millions of dollars a year nationally through reducing dairy shed electricity costs.
Those involved with the trial believe most larger dairy sheds could reduce power costs by $3000 to $5000 a year with limited capital expenditure that would have a payback period of less than five years.
Measures being looked at range from small changes to shed practice to investment in commercially available technology.
