Jon Morgan writes in Business Day that New Zealand’s agriculture industry has only a few years before large-scale intensive farming elsewhere in the world is able to outcompete our offering.
Heavy investment is science, technology and infrastructure will be necessary to avoid this happening, as will improved water resource management.
An excerpt: (read in full here)
“To be more efficient, New Zealand needed to invest heavily in science, technology and infrastructure, KPMG lead agribusiness partner Ian Proudfoot said.
“The farming sector of the future should have the ability to deliver food solutions all year around through adoption of advanced global sourcing and logistics.
…
“Sustainability was a priority. “Failure to adapt to sustainable practices will in our view leave the industry facing a future competing in low price, commodity markets with producers from countries that have increasingly got a significant low cost advantage over our producers.”
“Government policy should also be focused on better investment, management and use of water resources, Mr Proudfoot said.”