Meat added $6.4 billion more (13 per cent) while fruit vegetables and wine chipped in another $4.6 billion (9.5 per cent). All up, our primary exports from the sea to the land generated around 72 per cent of all physical exports.
Unlike other political parties, including the one in power, we have no issue living off the sheep's back.
So when regional councils and the government look determined to make it harder for our farm exporters to compete, it is of concern.
The Waikato Regional Council's Healthy Rivers Plan for Change proposes tough new rules on farming with similarly demanding changes set out in the Southland Regional Council's draft Water and Land Plan.
Rather than present policies that help farmers to clean up our waterways, as Scandinavia has done, these recent proposals would take a huge chunk of our farming out of business.
And many of our provincial economies will be utterly hollowed out whilst many smaller settlements will become ghost towns. It's one thing to toughen the rules but an enlightened approach would encourage our farmers to be our frontline in the environmental clean-up.
Massey University's Dr Mike Joy, who persistently presses planning authorities to toughen the rules on farmers, inadvertently revealed his true colours when he said New Zealand needed animals out of the food chain by 2050. So that's at least 43 per cent of our current physical exports gone in 34 years.
Dr Graeme Coles of Knewe Bio-Systems countered Dr Joy saying that dairy can feed nearly four times as many people per hectare as the best plant-based foods.
On The Country, he said adults would need to eat four kilograms of potatoes every day to replace the energy and protein found in meat and dairy. Like how the Coca-Cola slogan goes, to me, you can't beat the real thing.
While, the exact amount of grass or grain required to produce a kilogram of animal protein is a legitimate question and nutritional implications need clarifying, don't rule out some government apparatchik setting up another silly target to make us meat-free.
That'll fit nicely with a zero road toll by 2029 and becoming predator-free, also, by 2050.
When New Zealand First raised Waikato farmers' concerns in Parliament, Environment Minister Nick Smith discomfortingly said parts of the country would need limits on intensified farming, whatever 'intensified farming' means.
It is like these people forget how this country earns its way in the world so instead of helping, it becomes about banning.
Clearly becoming a meatless society makes for a fairly joyless one.
The Rt Hon Winston Peters is the Leader of New Zealand First and Member of Parliament for Northland
