A SUSTAINABLE FUTURE THROUGH CO-OPERATION, COMMUNICATION AND CONSUMERS

John Pearce ­
Shelly Beach Farms

Globalisation began when the Old World colonised the New World to provide itself with cheap resources for manufacturing: hardwoods, coal and all the metals industry could consume and of course cheap food especially sugar and meat.

Fixing one’s sight forever on the horizon hoping for the elusive pot of gold or whatever is no way to proceed and not expect to trip and stumble. O for a flat world with no curves. And here we are, the organic movement in the 21st century doing just the same, simply replacing chemical monocultures with organic monocultures, chasing marketing rainbows that disappear across the skies. Don’t get me wrong ­ this is not a criticism of those who would group around a commodity such as wine and target an offshore market.

Let’s stop for a moment and look at what might be the next rainbow, or rather where we might find the pot of gold at the end of that rainbow. What about the person sitting next to you now? If you are both here for the same reason then the likelihood of a good outcome from your participation is enhanced and especially so if you make the effort to say "G’day" and state your reason and expectation of being here today. And so, it is in the production world and also for the consumer. We need to talk to each other and find out each other’s expectations.

Co-operation and Competition

Where would this country of ours be today if it weren¹t for the co-operatives. Yes, those quaint initiatives of yesteryear that allowed family units to develop and flourish. 50 years ago a dairy farm milking 25 cows and supplying such a co-operative with cream could expect to have a far better living than that person’s son today who has to milk at least 250 cows to make ends meet.

Co-operatives show us people coming together with like needs and objectives, marketing together, buying collectively together and so reaping the benefits of group dynamics. Today’s environment of competitiveness has put farmer against farmer, consumer against consumer. The price of everything is determined by how much economic pressure you can bear or bring to bear. It has nothing to do with any tangible value. Coca Cola is more valuable than petrol ­ the advertisers have obviously convinced the children this is true. The price we received for our onions this year is 5c a kilo, and it was determined by how much pressure the world bulk buyers can apply to purchase them at bargain prices from Fiji or Zimbabwe.

Obviously we need to get outside the loop and market collectively; not just product lines but one stop group lines of vegetable, grain and dairy/animal products with the NZ label.

The only thing left to fight back against globalisation is sovereignty. New Zealanders are team players. It¹s the only thing that’s made us great either in fighting wars, on the sports field or in the market place.

Our own personal experience in marketing lamb in Germany bears out that alone you can too easily be derailed and fail. Our demise came at the hands of a German insurance group who in no way wanted to take any liability for a worker dropping one tonne of vacuum packs onto a pavement from the back of a truck. The truck and its contents were covered, the shop and its produce were covered, but the pavement wasn’t. Anyway, as a one-off, and the lone NZ supplier with no representation in Europe we didn’t stand a chance.

A tonne a week of organic lamb is what one outlet in Frankfurt was able to sell at twice the price of conventionally reared lamb. But there were no more suppliers then back in the late 80s and there still are no more suppliers. So, unless we are able to market collectively Shelly Beach Farm is staying on shore, taking showers and not risking getting nearly drowned in a German bath.

Not that this is a bad thing ­ without a solid domestic market, any producer going off shore will be somewhat at risk. If a one-stop shop is what the customer of today wants, we need to take advantage of days like today when retailers and consumers are here as well. We can make ourselves as producers available to listen to what their future needs are and see if the possibility of a more collectivised structure is possible. One where the pricing structures are outside the chemical market place and authenticity is guaranteed.

Opening one’s farm is quite possibly the first step. It has sustainably worked for us ­ that is until it started to get out of hand with interested people arriving virtually at anytime without prior arrangement. Four open days for the general public and six weekly events for specific interest groups by arrangement is now working well.

Children especially need to know where their food is coming from and, unless we give them some insight into how it is produced and how important it is to do it right, we just won’t have anyone wanting or caring enough to be the next generation of producers.

As some of you will know, the work at SBF is done completely by unqualified young people: there just isn’t what we would recognise as a typical farmer to be seen. But by group structure and information sharing, a very diversified large acreage farm does in fact work.

Agricultural Renaissance

And that’s how I see the next step of this agricultural renaissance working too ­ with regional and national groups talking together, buying and selling together and sharing a single philosophical premise of harmlessness.

Really, I don’t want to produce more or better lamb or milk than anyone else. I just want more producers to produce quality product that we can market together. Competitive anything has no place in our future world of food production. We just need our consumers to come to us ­ or our representative retailers ­ and tell us they want to be in partnership with those who sustain them.

We the producers can supply what you the consumer want: you may need to move outside your present supermarket conditioning however. That is a very seductive environment designed to lure you into thinking more is better. This is directly opposed to the principle of sustainability that less selection together with seasonal production based on quality and authority are what guarantee an equitable future for all of us.

Not every organic farmer will necessarily adopt the extreme diversification of SBF, but that’s where talking to your neighbours comes in. If we were to envisage agriculture, as it was 150 years ago in Europe, we would be looking at numbers of feudal hamlets and villages. And if we go back 200 years, there would be many manor houses and multiples of families and all of them just as diverse as SBF. And most of them would be completely self-sufficient and having excess production to supply the local town and cities.

Impossible? No, it’s the very same model we’re seeing enduring on the collective farms of Eastern Europe. The folly of monoculture as imposed by their erstwhile communist masters has been swept aside and diversification is the name of the game and organic is flavour of the month ­ every month. And for those who have been reaping great reward from their small intensive blocks in the west beware, because the new boys on the block are big and what they produce is good and affordable.

And that brings us to what is the real value of sustainably grown produce. Does it really have to be more expensive? Does it really cost more to produce? We can answer this with another question: is it that we’re isolating and adding on the subsidy inclusive in all chemically produced product, that is the hidden cost of soil degradation?

On our own farm, we would seem to produce meat and milk more cheaply. Some of our critics would say that’s only so because of the subsidisation of a volunteer work force. And others would look at the fact that we only milk once a day and only bring the sheep in twice a year and the beef cows only for TB testing. But with no chemical inputs and the only other inputs apart from diesel and electricity being half a tonne of lime per acre each 10 years, it has to be cheaper.

However, I strongly believe all sustainably produced food should be more expensive. This is largely because in New Zealand, unlike Denmark and England where the government supports and subsidises those in transition, it looks as though it is we established producers, who will need to become the advisors and support persons for those who would convert to what we truly believe is right. The cost of this has to be built in somewhere and it should, in a just society, be paid by the consumers of this sustainable food rather than borne entirely by the producers.

Bucking the System

Only when our neighbours are together with us will we become independent of the false ideologies, unjust banking systems and gouging producer boards. Gross Domestic Product ­ GDP ­ is held up as the gauge of our profitability when subtracted from our outgoings. This subversive term numbs us to the point of not knowing that we are bankrupting ourselves. The masters of the GDP equation ­ who would have us keep them in positions of power ­ have included as a profit that which we deplete and cannot renew. Even worse, they include also as profit money we are forced to spend to patch up, clean up what we contaminate and degrade.

Depletion is a cost, not a profit. Pollution, pollution-caused illness and anti-pollution expenditure are costs, not profits.

Burning up our soils with water soluble, acid-based fertiliser and burning down the forests to make available more land to degrade, is man’s greatest folly. It will lead to our extinction.

John Pearce, Shelly Beach Farms, RD 1, Helensville

Ph: 09 4202 807:

http://www.shellybeachfarms.org