Wake up to organic, farmer tells board

By PHILIPPA STEVENSON and CLIVE DALTON


A Dairy Board move to launch organic butter in Britain with milk from Austrian cows is a sign the marketer has been caught napping, says an organic milk producer.

Waikato farmer Gavin Fisher is disappointed the board apparently made little effort to contact local organic producers before buying the milk overseas and selling it under the Anchor brand.

"They're not moving fast enough. Early on they were saying it is only a small niche market and they weren't too worried with it. I think they have been caught napping a bit. The markets are exploding really, really fast overseas and they should be doing more in New Zealand."

Just 18 of the nation's 14,700 dairy farms are certified for organic production but Mr Fisher said others were making the transition to organic, including one farmer with 2500 cows, and many more were interested.

He belongs to the new, 25-member Organic Dairy Producers Group whose membership is set to double. A field day last month attracted 40 farmers.

Many have not taken the step to certification because a lack of interest from dairy companies means the market for their milk is doubtful.

The board's global director of research, Kevin Marshall, said there was no question that the market for organic foods was growing rapidly. But the cautious approach by the board's British subsidiary, New Zealand Milk (UK), in testing the market first was justified.

"While the proponents of organic production often paint a picture of exponentially expanding demand, the evidence of the sustainability of that demand is rather less convincing," he said. "We need to proceed with care."

Countries such as Denmark, where much of the nation's agriculture is being switched to organic production, have surpluses of organic milk which could flood any new market developed by New Zealand. Other countries, such as Britain, subsidised the transition of conventional dairy farms to organic accreditation.

Mr Fisher said even if the market for organic product became flooded and premiums disappeared there were still advantages to the farming style from an environmental and animal welfare standpoint.

"If we don't move fast enough, the way Europe is moving, in the future they could use it [conventional farming] as a trade sanction against us." Issues could be chemical and fertiliser contamination and animal management practices such as tail docking, mating synchronisation and induced calving, he said.

Mr Fisher, who has farmed at Waihou near Te Aroha for 18 years, had been sharemilking on the 52ha family farm with traditional methods until realising that economic viability was eroding and the business would not support two families.

He said they were tired of having to continually increase inputs to maintain production levels.

"Our family's concern for health and nutrition for ourselves and the stock led us down the organic pathway. We were aware of the growing demand for organic produce and wanted to be in a position to capture those opportunities as they developed."

Mr Fisher, who expects this year's production to be 43,000kg of milksolids, said the economic benefits of organic farming had come from reduced losses from disease and empty heifers, lower replacement rates and freedom from nitrogen dependence. This had meant lower stress levels in both people and stock.