Latest / Best of Business / Mark Hopper: Federated Farmers national board member on Minister Shane Jones calling for more investment in aquaculture sector

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Mark Hopper: Federated Farmers national board member on Minister Shane Jones calling for more investment in aquaculture sector · Best of Business

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  Speaker 2: Now, Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says we're at peak cow.
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  Speaker 2: He says dairy is capped out, and he says it's
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  Speaker 2: time to start investing in aquaculture. He said, we're not
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  Speaker 2: allowed to grow any more dairy farms due to negative
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  Speaker 2: water outcomes. Wall's not making much money and the meat
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  Speaker 2: sector is facing calls to decrease its footprint and instead,
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  Speaker 2: he says, the aquaculture sector is now one of New
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  Speaker 2: Zealand's most promising industries.
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  Speaker 3: Now.
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  Speaker 2: Mark Hooper is a national board member of Federated Farmers
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  Speaker 2: and with US Now.
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  Speaker 3: Hey, Mark, good evening, Heather.
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  Speaker 2: Do you agree with Shane Jones?
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  Speaker 3: Well, I agree with them in the sense of there's
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  Speaker 3: a huge amount of potential and aquaculture and so we
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  Speaker 3: shouldn't definitely shouldn't put that aside. I guess though, the
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  Speaker 3: terminology that you used there around being at peak cow,
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  Speaker 3: that's certainly a rhetoric that's been going around for a while,
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  Speaker 3: and you know, the industry has been really focused on
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  Speaker 3: milking the best cows, not necessarily more cows and as
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  Speaker 3: such has been able to sustain or even grow production
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  Speaker 3: slightly over the last few years. But you know, overall,
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  Speaker 3: it's not really a good thing that we want our
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  Speaker 3: major productive sectors to be stagnant. We really want to
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  Speaker 3: get back into a position where we can see some
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  Speaker 3: positive growth happening across all of the primary sub sectors.
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  Speaker 3: They're critical for our economy and you know, there's huge
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  Speaker 3: opportunity there.
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  Speaker 1: I think the.
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  Speaker 2: Argument though, is that you don't grow the number of cows,
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  Speaker 2: you grow how efficient those cows are. Is that what
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  Speaker 2: you're hoping for. Do you still see space for us
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  Speaker 2: to actually have more cows.
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  Speaker 3: Well, certainly there's a good trend towards having quality cows
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  Speaker 3: and that does make a difference. That is what gives
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  Speaker 3: us a whole lot of efficiencies on farm and improves performance.
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  Speaker 3: But one of the things to understand that in a
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  Speaker 3: sense the Minister was right, and that over the last
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  Speaker 3: five years is four years since twenty twenty anyway, when
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  Speaker 3: the Essential fresh Water Package came and one of the
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  Speaker 3: National Environment standards was effectively a moratorium on land use
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  Speaker 3: change to a more intensive use over ten hectares, and
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  Speaker 3: so in effect that had the biggest impact on gairy farming.
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  Speaker 3: Now that National Environment Standard is due to expire at
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  Speaker 3: the end of twenty twenty four, so that perhaps creates
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  Speaker 3: an opportunity where we can see some potential land use changing.
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  Speaker 3: And I think the key thing here is that what
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  Speaker 3: we really want to see is we don't want to
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  Speaker 3: see regulations like that that distort the marketplace. We should
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  Speaker 3: be looking for what is the highest and best use
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  Speaker 3: outcome of the land that's available. Some of that will
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  Speaker 3: transition to horticulture. There's opportunity for more land to transition
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  Speaker 3: back to daring or into daring. It's just a case
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  Speaker 3: of managing what the environmental impacts around that are.
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  Speaker 1: Mark.
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  Speaker 2: I saw you saying somewhere that you see huge opportunity
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  Speaker 2: for expansion offshore. What do you mean by that.
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  Speaker 3: Offshore? I think that was probably in reference to aquaculture,
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  Speaker 3: and so obviously there is a huge opportunities you.
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  Speaker 2: Like, set up a farm in Brazil.
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  Speaker 3: No, well, it's there is you know, scope to that,
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  Speaker 3: but of course it's gross here in New Zealand. That
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  Speaker 3: drives our economy. You know, we need growth here in
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  Speaker 3: order to build our roads, build our skills, schools, hospitals
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  Speaker 3: provide employment and that sort of thing, so I think
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  Speaker 3: that's where the key focus should be.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, brilliant, Hey, Mark, thank you very much, thanks for clarifying.
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  Speaker 2: That's Mark Cooper, National Board membad for at H. Try
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  Speaker 2: the English Federated Farmers.
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