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Speaker 1: Now, Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says we're at peak cow.

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Speaker 1: He says dairy is capped out, and he says it's

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Speaker 1: time to start investing in aquaculture. He said, we're not

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Speaker 1: allowed to grow any more dairy farms due to negative

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Speaker 1: water outcomes. Wall's not making much money and the meat

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Speaker 1: sector is facing calls to decrease its footprint and instead,

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Speaker 1: he says, the aquaculture sector is now one of New

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Speaker 1: Zealand's most promising industries.

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Speaker 2: Now.

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Speaker 1: Mark Hooper is a national board member of Federated Farmers

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Speaker 1: and with us Now.

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Speaker 2: Hey, Mark, good evening, Heather.

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Speaker 1: Do you agree with Shane Jones?

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Speaker 2: Well, I agree with them in the sense that there's

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Speaker 2: a huge amount of potential and aquaculture and so we

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Speaker 2: shouldn't definitely shouldn't put that aside. I guess though, the

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Speaker 2: terminology that you used there around being at peak care,

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Speaker 2: that's certainly a rhetoric that's been going around for a while.

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Speaker 2: And you know, the industry has been really focused on

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Speaker 2: milking the best cows, not necessarily more cows, and as

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Speaker 2: such has been able to sustain or even grow production

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Speaker 2: slightly over the last few years. But you know, overall,

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Speaker 2: it's not really a good thing that we want our

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Speaker 2: major productive sectors to be stagnant. We really want to

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Speaker 2: get back into a position where we can see some

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Speaker 2: positive growth happening across all of the primary subsectors. They're

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Speaker 2: critical for our economy and you know, there's huge opportunity there.

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Speaker 1: I think the argument though, is that you don't grow

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Speaker 1: the number of cows, you grow how efficient those cows are.

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Speaker 1: Is that what you're hoping. Do you still see space

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Speaker 1: for us to actually have more cows.

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Speaker 2: Well, certainly there's a good trend towards having quality cows

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Speaker 2: and that does make a difference. That is what gives

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Speaker 2: us a whole lot of efficiencies on farm and improves performance.

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Speaker 2: But one of the things to understand that, in a sense,

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Speaker 2: the Minister was right in that over the last five years,

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Speaker 2: four years since twenty twenty anyway, when the Essential fresh

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Speaker 2: Water Package came and one of the National Environment standards

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Speaker 2: was effectively a moratorium on land use change to a

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Speaker 2: more intensive use over ten hectares, and so in effect

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Speaker 2: that had the biggest impact on gairy farming. Now that

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Speaker 2: National Environment standard is due to expire at the end

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Speaker 2: of twenty twenty four. So that perhaps creates an opportunity

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Speaker 2: where we can see some potential land use changing. And

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Speaker 2: I think the key thing here is that what we

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Speaker 2: really want to see is we don't want to see

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Speaker 2: regulations like that that distort the market place. We should

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Speaker 2: be looking for what is the highest and best use

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Speaker 2: outcome of the land that's available. Some of that will

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Speaker 2: transition to horticulture. There's opportunity for more land to transition

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Speaker 2: back to daring or into daring. It's just a case

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Speaker 2: of managing what the environmental impacts around that are. Mark.

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Speaker 1: I saw you saying somewhere that you see a huge

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Speaker 1: opportunity for expansion offshore. What do you mean by that.

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Speaker 2: Offshore? I think that was probably in reference to aquaculture,

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Speaker 2: and so obviously there is a huge opportunities.

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Speaker 1: You like, set up a farm in Brazil.

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Speaker 2: No, well, it's there is you know, scope to that,

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Speaker 2: but of course it's gross here in New Zealand. That

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Speaker 2: drives our economy. You know, we need growth here in

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Speaker 2: order to build our roads, build our skills, schools, hospitals,

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Speaker 2: provide employment and that sort of thing. So I think

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Speaker 2: that's where the key focus should be.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, brilliant Hey, Mark, thank you very much. Thanks for

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Speaker 1: clarifying that's Mark Cooper. National Board metbad for font at

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Speaker 1: Try the English Federated Farmers. For more from Hither Duplessy

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