Farmgirl was more than a little dismissive of David Carter's speech to the Federated Farmers conference this week.
He told us to, "adopt new ideas, abandon old ways of thinking and embrace different farming methods"...blah, blah, blah.
This sentence has been trotted out by every agricultural minister since butter was churned by hand. It means nothing and it's not helpful.
When will Carter and his fellow ministers realise that this kind of talk is nothing but condescending as it suggests today's farmers are slow on the uptake and are not looking towards the future.
Farmgirl suggests it's not farmers who need to embrace different methods but more the companies that represent them and the politicians who continue to impede progress by whacking on costs at the farm gate year in, year out with thinly veiled bureaucracy - Kyoto being one such example.
Mr Carter and others that repeat these meaningless phrases (Anderton was equally as good at that - his tongue could roll off thousands of them in a week) regarding the need for farmers to adopt new ideas would do well to visit the Young Farmer Contest in Palmerston North today and talk to this latest generation of farmers. Farmgirl thinks they would teach him a thing or two.
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7 comments:
In complete agreement with your comments.Keep them coming.
Yes, and when the answer is so simple. The Government and bureaucrats simply need to step off the plank, sorry, out of the way.
And Carter says all this, yet the Government he is part of is going to impose an unnecessary and useless, but costly, ETS on the farming sector, consequences be damned. There was a provisioning for this in English's first budget.
Speaking of which ...
And just as bad, with English's citation yet again of the Whitehouse Treasury report on Friday (10 July), he is putting the notion of a land value tax (as if rating by local government isn't tax enough), and a capital gains tax squarely on the table.
Personally, I think one or both of these are coming, and in a medium term timeframe - unless Mr Carter wants to categorically state now that is not going to happen. (But then, he better have a word with Bill).
With this, and English's first budget where he grew the welfare state, not even attacking the rort that is Working For Families, I not only see no difference to being under the dictatorship of Papa Cullen, this National Government could be worse.
Sorry, too much espresso this morning ...
Nadine,
You deserve a medal for having the courage to write the truth.
The farming community deserved a great deal better than what Carter had to say. Goodness only knows he has had plenty of time in the wings of the opposition to come up with some new ideas.
Mark Hubbard you sum up where the productive sector sits with the National poiticians. They just keeping on knocking back those who show initiative and self reliance. I have had that feeling for some time now that they could be worse than Labour.
Some interesting articles written at http://brookeonline.livejournal.com/16351.html
Recently. on Jamie MacKay's Farming show programme,(farming show.com) Don Carson suggested that as we are governed under the MMP system, farmers should consider forming their own political party which may enable them to have some influence in Parliament as the Green and Maori Parties do.
If you deserve a medal then its for the non-journalist of the year who writes misguided opinion masquerading as fact
Anon
Would you please elaborate on your statement:
"...writes misguided opinion masquerading as fact."
I am at a loss to see how Farmgirl's opinion on "Farmers tired of hearing the same old speel from the top," is not fact.
In my experience, farmers generally lead the way on innovation and technological advancement. If government gets out of the way famers will generally do it themselves!
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