-
Farmer examines wool - Source: ONE News
Sheep farmers who blocked industry access to levies and taxpayer subsidies on research and development should not be blamed for the subsequent job cuts at the nation's biggest state science company Agresearch, a farmer lobbyist says.
"Blaming sheep farmers for the loss of 43 jobs at AgResearch is akin to blaming investors for the failure of a finance company," says Federated Farmers president Don Nicolson.
Agresearch has proposed over 40 redundancies, mostly scientists and technicians - with the details to be decided next month.
In late 2008 it laid off 30 people - some of them in voluntary redundancies - as it posted an after-tax loss of $754,000 compared to a $3.05 million profit the previous year.
The budget came under further pressure late last year when meat and wool farmers opted to drop the wool levy collected by industry board Meat and Wool New Zealand.
Agresearch chief executive Andrew West said farmers stopped investing in wool research because they did not think it was important.
At the time, he blamed the vote against a levy for wool research and other industry-good activity on smaller farmers thinking in terms of a cottage-industry, particularly in Southland.
But since then he has also pointed to a wider shift in priority from farm animal science to the environment.
West said the restructuring was partly based on an expectation AgResearch will lose government funding for some projects, also on a need to strengthen its finances from break-even to delivering a $5 million surplus.
"This is the sum of money we think we need to both re-invest in the institute and to give us enough flexibility so if we take a revenue-hit, we don't have to turn around and say we have got to lose staff," he said.
AgResearch's plans include laying off 16 scientists in meat and wool research at Ruakura, near Hamilton, and another five at Mosgiel, near Dunedin.
Nicolson says the redundancies are a "tragedy" for the research staff involved and for New Zealand.
"But with the national flock less than half the peak of 70 million reached in 1982, research monies have simply followed this 28-year realignment," he says.
"AgResearch is basing its business plan on where the sheep industry is, not where it once was".
Nicolson says if wool was getting the sort of returns it had in the 1980s, it would be a $2.8 billion export, "but now it's down to just under $500 million".
"It's simply wrong to blame farmers for pulling the wool levy when our returns have collapsed".
Farmers have invested money in science but have not gained sufficient reward.
He has questioned whether the state science companies were too narrowly specialised for New Zealand.
"There's absolutely no reason why (former Forest Research Institute) Scion .... shouldn't be working with wool fibre as it does with wood fibre."
Earnings from a $30 million pool of money put into the Wool Research Organisation of New Zealand could be used to develop commercial products.
Seeing genuine "runs on the board" could make farmers think again about funding research.
Nicolson, himself a crossbreed sheep farmer, says he wants to see mass market products developed that use wool fibre, and that these could lift profitability if promoted with wool's "green" characteristics.
"We need private sector inventiveness to come forward and use wool fibre in completely new ways."
