Ravensdown claim backdown over PKE but haven't gone far enough

Today the PR spinners were busy again, convincing arable farmers that Ravensdown are pulling out of the South Island animal nutrition market due to continuing 'negative' feedback. However, they claim this was in the face of 'overwhelming support'. Which was it then? - negative feedback or overwhelming support? Farmgirl is confused.

But besides this point there is another. The South Island market was small and the meetings where Ravensdown claimed support were about selling PKE into the North Island. It is still many arable farmers contention that Ravensdown should not be importing PKE into any of New Zealand. The North Island market is still undercutting arable suppliers. Therefore the backdown today from Ravensdown is nothing but a PR ploy and is not worth the paper it is written on.

For goodness sakes, if you can understand how damaging this has been, boys, to your reputation as the small concession today recognises, then surely you can extend the hand further and stop bringing in PKE altogether.

Questions still need to be answered as well...if they are promoting a 50/50 percent blend of PKE and barley why is it that they have only taken 6500 tonnes of barley. If you do the maths they sold 50 000 tonnes of the mix last year - doesn't look as though that barley made up 50% does it?

Feds to the rescue

And the handshake of the week goes to Ian Morten, the Federated Farmers Grain and Seed Chairperson for his and the Feds concerted and continued effort to squash PKE imports.

Farmgirl has already voiced her opinions on PKE and how it continues to undermine arable farmers' bottom lines, as well as present a significant risk to all of our industries.

Ian's call this week to report any foreign matter in PKE reminds us all of how ridiculous the entire situation is. The Feds have received 'anecdotal evidence' of insects, soil etc being present in the mix, although MAFBNZ claim there hasn't been any substantial risks so far...

Why are we waiting at the bottom of the cliff with our arms wide open rather than blocking the fall?

It seems simple. PKE presents a risk - get rid of it and support our local cockies instead of their overseas counterparts.

Going cheap...take as much palm kernel as you want says Ravensdown rep...

Scene: Lincoln Field Days 2009

Setting: Inside Ravensdown tent a drum of brown mush indispersed with as many specks of grain as you can count on your fingers.

What Ravensdown calls it: Dairy Hi-Carb

What they proclaim: This palm kernel mix is 'awesum' for both the dairy and arable industry because it helps both industries by giving the dairy farmer a cheap break (never mind the proven poor animal nutrition of the stuff) and the arable farmer a chance to pull out a handful of grain from his silo - therefore helping both shareholders.

What Ravensdown rep said: "You can have as much of this as you want."

What arable farmers said: "I actually came here to buy fertliser. I see you don't have any so I'll just pop along to the Ballance tent shall I?"

Ravensdown CEO Rodney Green insults arable/horticulture farmers in further slight to the sector

Well for those of you that put on a good $100 000 grand plus of Ravensdown fertiliser each year, of which there are many in Canterbury, you can be assured that your 'friendly' farming co-operative does not value your business at all.

In fact you don't exist...but you already knew that when they decided to ignore the sector and enter the palm kernel market.

But yesterday in the New Zealand Farmer's Weekly what we all knew was confirmed when Ravensdown chief executive Rodney Green ignored the presence of a New Zealand arable sector.

"Thank goodness for Western Australia," he brayed, when talking about the purchase of United Farmers last year, because being nearly all arable farming it apparently brought in a third commodity group to the co-operative, behind dairying and the sheep/beef sector.

Hello Rodders...time to come investigate all the huge spud, onion, processed vegetable, cereal and specialist seed operations that prop up your balance sheet each year because apparently you don't think they exist.

In fact you told Alan Williams that in recent years Ravensdown business has changed from its traditional sheep and beef farmer base to a broadly 50/50 split between sheep/beef and dairying. There was no mention of the arable/horticulture sector.

What an insult and it shows why the arable sector shareholding is being largely ignored by the co-operative. Why on earth do we persist with a co-operative when they do not even value or acknowledge our business?

I know of another fertiliser business that is only too keen to pick us up. May-be it's only when we pull out all the tonnages we put through that Ravensdown and Rodney Green might notice the hole in the balance sheet we were filling.

Ravensdown defending involvement in animal nutrition market

Too little...too late.

After recent criticism (Farmgirl being among them) Ravensdown have decided to bring out the PR swagger Kings to persuade arable farmers that their involvement in the animal nutrition market (namely the palm kernel market) is actually good for them.

And I expect they will do a magnificent job of sugar coating what is still a kick in the teeth to their cropping farmers, but they forget one thing, and that is while they spin it anyway they like there is still no way that any palm kernel sold from Ravensdown benefits a substantial number of its shareholders.

Regardless of the waffle they express about how it is encouraging some North Island farmers to add grain as well as palm kernel to their mixes and how they are actually trying to help our industry, it does not disguise the fact that they should not be in that market in the first place.

As I've said before Ravensdown is a farming co-operative. It is not there for dairy farmers alone, sheep farmers alone or cropping farmers alone. All we ask is that we have fertiliser at decent prices and leave the animal nutrition market alone.

So it is with trepidation that we will attend the meeting with the big guns on the 7th April. I'm sure, as happened the last time I posted on this matter, that I will have some anonymous poor comments again from directors and those trying to protect their own jobs but I do it for a valid reason - in the name of trying to achieve fairness across the board and keep the co-operative honest.

Ravensdown and a whole can of whooey

The latest PR offering from Ravensdown on its palm kernel business was nothing more than a slippery backslide designed to do nothing more than calm the angry hordes of arable farmers who make up a substantial percentage of Ravensdown's fertiliser profits.

Talk about biting the hand that feeds you. First they try to make a buck at the expense of cropping farmers by importing palm kernel to dairy farmers, when those very same farmers might have purchased wheat from their New Zealand neighbours, and now they have fobbed the protests aside by claiming that they are the arable industry's saviour, charging in on a white horse.

Their PR doctors should be given a pay rise (the palm kernel profits could be the trick) for their claim that by adding a small amount of grain to PKE this season they have created a 'new' domestic grain market for farmers.

Very few wheat farmers sell their grain for the purpose of Ravensdown's diffusive business plans and two major points have been missed in the process.

Ravensdown is a farmer's co-operative - not a dairy farmer co-operative, not a sheep farmer or arable farmer co-operative, but a united farmer's co-operative and as such any move by the directors to go into a business which seriously disadvantages one group of farmers like the palm kernel imports does should be vetoed.

These board sitters should be sacked if they can't even stick to the core principles of a co-operative and arable farmers should vote with their feet and buy from the opposition until such time as Ravensdown sees fit to even up the playing field again.

Imagine the outrage from dairy farmers if Ravensdown went into importing milk powder to those beef farmers breeding bobby calves. It is the same thing.

They are a fertiliser co-operative and these decisions serve to drive a wedge right through their community of shareholders. Many were unhappy about the decision to stray from their core business of fertiliser when they decided to go into agri-chemicals and many more may be unhappy if this foray into palm kernel imports proves marginal on the bank sheet as some suspect it might.

If Ballance were smart they would move in for the kill. There has never been a more opportune time.