Labour against larger farms

Press, 27 August 1980, Page 10

Labour against larger farms

PA Auckland Strong measures would be taken by a Labour government to halt the present trend to larger farms and soaring land costs, the Deputy Leader of the Opposition (Mr D. Lange) has said. Tough measures were necessary to bring about a change from the present stagnant farm production and to encourage intensive farming, Mr Lange told the annual Convention of Agricultural Science. New Zealand’s future lay in boosting what it did better than any other country, farming, processing, and innovation — and not artificial, capital-inten-sive, high-risk developments such as aluminium smelters, Mr Lange said. But people could not be expected to buy into farms when prices were so high that they had little chance of ever being able to carry economically. • Mr Lange said that New Zealanders would not accept a return to direct price control on land sales, but there were several other options. It would be feasible for a government to instruct all financial institutions not to lend an over-valued farm property — a policy already held by the Rural Bank, he said. It was also possible to use variants of the taxation system, such as

asset taxation, penalties on land sold above genuine valuation, or by providing incentives to those who left money in a property at reasonable' mortgage rates. Mr Lange said the increasing size of farms, prompted by the price of land and the increasing pressure to farm for capital gain, also required a big change of attitude by. the Government and the farming industry. Entrenched farming interests had stopped a Government bill introduced last year to control open-slather land aggregation. But that attitude could not be allowed .to prevail, he said. . “If. a government has a commitment to agricultural development, then it has to be prepared to step in and assert a community authority on behalf of that development. “It has a clear responsibility, in my view, first to step in and control unwarranted amalgamation and land aggregation ... And second to work actively in ■' breaking up large units,” he said. Mr Lange said that as in the past, a Labour government would be active in land purchasing accelerating rural water supply, irrigation and drainage schemes, and in promoting step p i n g-stone programmes for smaller farm units.