‘Look anew at options’

Press, 27 April 1984, Page 18

‘Look anew at options’

Farmers needed to take a new look at the land-use options available to them, Mr C. G. R. Chevasse, of Rotorua, told the Farm Forestry Association at its annual conference in Timaru Mr Chevasse retired as a project leader of the Forest Research Institute in 1981, and is a forestry consultant.

He said it was abundantly clear that traditional farming had been on an economic slide for some years. “Our butter market hangs on the precarious situation in the E.E.C., where the Common . Agricultural Policy, bankrupt alike of funds and ideas, is rapidly foundering,” he said.

“Our traditional meat markets are equally at risk.

“Our wool markets are so-so, but they don’t make us rich. At the same time, the interest payments on loans are the biggest items of farm expenditure. “How many of our traditonal farmers would be out of business were it not for S.M.P. support? And what traumatic effects on our traditional land use would it have if these were withdrawn? Will governments be prepared to continue paying them indefinitely? “Allied to. this, of course, is our baleful financial system, which allows farmers only a residual value after all the cost-plus manufacturing and distributing agencies have taken their whack.

“Yet, oddly enough, those who lead the farming world

here seem to have no other policy than ‘more of the same’,” Mr Chevasse said. He asked whether farmers were growing the right crops, whether they be farm or forest crops. “As a corollary,” he said, “are we using our land in the right way?” New Zealand was hoping for a greatly expanded market for the large additional volume of wood which would become available after 1990, he said.

“We haven’t any idea who will buy this wood, yet we continue to plant large areas of radiata pine in a spirit of optimism which should be viewed with some caution. “The evidence is that world softwood supplies are likely to be adequate for some time to come, while the supply of decorative and special-purpose timbers is likely to be severely curtailed within 30 to 40 years. Should we, then, continue to place all our eggs in one basket?”

Farmers did not think so, and were calling for increased plantings of specialpurpose and decorative timbers. Plants to make these into veneers, furniture, and other products were relatively small and would enhance rural work opportunities without doing violence to rural social values. Articles made from such high-value wood met the three criteria on which exporting industries should be based: minimum import, content, maximum indigenous content; and a high value-to-weight ratio. “Our traditional manufactures don’t meet these criteria,” Mr Chevasse said.

Calling for a re-examina-tion of the traditional kind of farm forestry, Mr Chevasse said that most farmers did not plant woodlots for financial returns, and almost 40 per cent found that conventional woodlot forestry involved too much toil, according to a survey made in 1983 of 200 Wellington farms. Forestry encouragement grants were not an incentive to those who had no interest in planting, but merely a bonus to those already committed to farm forestry, he said.

As for shelter, it was apparent that horticulturists had “got the message,” but farmers had not. The National Shelter Working Party had assembled an impressive body of knowledge on the subject, and there was no doubt that agricultural production could be greatly enhanced by shelter. Irrigation water would be conserved, soil erosion reduced, and stock health and lambing percentages considerably improved. As an example, Mr Chevasse quoted a study of a Hawke’s Bay hill farm of 415 ha. When 38 per cent of the farm was planted in trees, stock units dropped by only 5 per cent, and income (without considering the value accruing to the trees) increased by 25 per cent.

However, the marriage of farming and forestry could best be achieved by agroforestry, Mr Chevasse said. Low-density tree stands, with intensive silviculture, were grown in pasture. “This type of land use now has more than 10 years of research input,” he said. “A very valuable bottom log is produced, and it is, economically, a very attractive form of forestry.” From the farmer’s point of view, the amount of work required was low; only 37 hours per hectare over six years, compared with more than 150 hours per hectare for conventional forestry. “Agroforestry is likely to have important shelter effects,” he said. More must be learned about it from the farming point of view. For example, stock numbers would be reduced where it was practised, but the financial yield per animal might increase and there was good reason to believe that lambing percentages would rise.

Farm foresters could fit in with these ideas by working to make farm forestry more attractive to farmers in general, he said. “This will mean working towards proper pricing and marketing. It may well mean changes in legislation, regulations, and incentives. Foresters are not the proper people to do this; the impetus must come from farmers.”