Lifting the profile of farming in New Zealand

Abstract

A growing division between urban and farming communities is having far reaching implications in this country. While 47% or $17.2 billion of this country's export earnings comes from food production, only 7.7% of New Zealanders lives in what Statistics NZ describes as either rural areas with low urban influence or highly rural/remote areas. This country is unique globally in that it is the only first world nation that is economically reliant on primary production yet the division between urban and rural communities is, according to the former Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment Morgan Williams, this country's single most important emerging political problem. A lack of understanding of this country's farming systems, upon which the economy is dependant, is leading to attitudes that threaten the right of fanners to fann in a sensible and sustainable way.