[PEN-L:1497] Re: Myths and Facts of Dairy Deregulation

[Bill Rosenberg <w.rosenberg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Ken Hanly <khanly@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>  "When the idea of deregulation is discussed in the dairy
> industry, we often hear proponents holding up New Zealand as an
> example of how producers can prosper in a deregulated market.
> However, deregulation in that country is more myth than reality.
> (COMMENT: This is not quite true of course, but as applied to dairy
> producers I assume they are correct.)

See my previous post for the tension between maintaining the
Dairy Board's export monopoly and the deregulation the New Zealand
government (and farming leaders) like to boast about. I think that
actually the New Zealand dairy industry is pretty genuinely
deregulated - apart from the Dairy Board's special status.

What we're starting to see now is agribusiness taking advantage of
the situation, while "family farmers" increasingly have to have
second jobs to make ends meet.

>  "Their view is absolutely clear; they remain overwhelmingly in
> favor of retaining the board's statutory powers."
>  Dairy industries around the world operate in a regulated market
> system. Specific regulatory powers differ but they are all designed
> to give farmers some power in the marketplace. Without them we would
> be at the mercy of the lowest bidder."
>
>   Cheers, Ken Hanly
>
> P.S. I wonder if SIR Dryden was elected to the board or appointed by
> the queen through the governor general!

New Zealand doesn't have inherited titles. This knighthood was given
in 1994 for services to dairy farming, after he'd been chairman of
the Board for four or five years. He began his working life as
a sharemilker (essentially a contracted manager of a dairy farm whose
pay is a proportion of the output - many New Zealand farmers start
off as that, saving to buy a farm) but hasn't been a fulltime farmer
for 20 years. He rose through Federated Farmers (elected) but I'm not
sure what the process is to get to be chair of the Dairy Board -
he'd been on the board and chair of one the biggest Dairy Co-ops for
some years. (Source: "Listener", 17 Oct 98, p.28ff)

He's probably a typical representative of Federate Farmers - likes
deregulation in general, especially  for everyone else (he's been on
an "eminent persons" group trying to speed up free trade in
agricultural products under APEC for example) - but not when it hurts
them themselves.

Bill Rosenberg