June 2014

VIEWPOINT

with John Barnes, Managing Director – June 2014

From time to time it is necessary for me to visit our suppliers on the other side of the world and ensure that our relationships are sound and ongoing. I have just returned from such a trip and it is interesting to note the views of those who trade fertiliser worldwide on a huge scale.

As most will know, we in New Zealand are not on our own when it comes to problems of water degradation and other environmental issues that are rearing their ugly heads. However, I am told that in most of the other countries where these issues have become a problem, they are now moving away from Superphosphate. We should be very aware of this increasing trend worldwide. In fact I was told that most countries are moving to fertilizer programmes that are pretty much what we have been advocating at Fertilizer New Zealand for years. This is nice to know and reinforces the fact that in spite of being in the minority here at home we are pretty much up with world practice.

Sometimes it takes a period of time before a problem is recognised and remedial action is taken. Unfortunately in my view, our scientists and research establishments are far too intent on defending and reinforcing the admittedly excellent results of past years. Everyone in business knows that one must keep looking to the future and adjusting to circumstances as they arise. Simply defending past practice is a sure path to disaster, particularly when the evidence of nutrient waste and loss to waterways and ground water is as clear as it is.

We are constantly told that we operate in an environment that is firmly based on science and if it cannot be proved in a scientific way then it cannot be accepted as fact. When science comes up with some nasty truths we find that it is not as readily accepted as one would have hoped.

In effect, we should accept problems as they arise, analyse them and seek innovative solutions, rather than sanitising the evidence to defend the status quo. We at Fertilizer New Zealand are in the business of finding solutions to your on-farm problems not glossing over them and pretending that they do not exist.

The early winter has been wetter than normal but is to be expected after the early part of 2014 was quite dry in many places. This has led to good grass growth and in many places there is still growth. However in the Waikato the water tables are still low, and it will take still more rain to lift these. Southland, on the other hand has had some cooler weather.

Trade Shows

While we didn’t have a stand at the New Zealand National Agricultural Fieldays this year, some of our staff attended and as usual they found it to be very interesting. With farming practices changing and developing it is important to keep up with what is happening.

We will however be at the AgFest in Hokitika on July 4th and 5th.
Look out for our site!

Soils are our most precious asset and should not be taken for granted, as the current farmers at some stage will pass it on to others.
From my experience the top metre of soil must be treated with care. It is not a dumping ground for chemicals, nor for using extreme amounts of fertilisers or irrigation. Our soils hold an amazing amount of microbes; up to 10 tonnes per hectare. To have good soil it must be aggregated, which means the tiny particles of parent material will be joined or bound together in a way that holds the soil either from blowing away in a storm or washing away in a rain event.

So how do these aggregates form? By a combination of fungal and biological activity.

We will look briefly at the way fungi work in the soil. As in most situations, there are good and bad aspects to fungi. Some create problems and these are usually identified and a treatment developed to cure the problem. However, there are equally as many beneficial fungi which we seldom hear about. These are unseen and usually unnoticed until something goes wrong. The beneficial ones grow out like tiny threads and pull together the tiny soil particles, much like the roots of a plant hold soil together.

Fungi have an important role in breaking down tough debris, which then enables beneficial microbes to continue the decomposition process once most of the cellulose has been exhausted. They spread and grow vigorously by producing many cells and filaments and they can attack organic residues that are either too dry, acidic, or low in nitrogen for microbes to decompose.

Another important role of fungi is in healing the soil. We are conditioned to providing cures for soil diseases by applying a chemical, but nature has its own way of taking care of things. There is a group of fungi whose job it is to seek out the pathogens in soil and destroy or at lease isolate them before another group come in and correct what has been disrupted by the pathogen. This is a very complex process but nature does this very efficiently.

At Fertilizer New Zealand we have taken some of these fungi and multiplied them and put them into our VitaLife range of products. In the development stages for VitaLife we found the medium in which we were growing our fungi in, kept growing into round lumps about the size of tennis balls. We were mystified as to why this would happen. After some investigations we found that certain fungi were growing out threads that then pulled the medium into a ball like shape.

What we were seeing was an actively growing product which was and still is truly alive.

The ruling on the Ruataniwha Water Storage System brings into focus the way we need to head as a farming nation. No longer can we build dams and power systems as we did in the 1950’s through to the 1980’s.

As an aside I was working in South Canterbury during the later end of these projects and it brought in a great deal of work to our communities. For example, two major building companies put together all the houses and schools for the Twizel village. This is without all the other civil work that was achieved by a group of talented people. What was undertaken during this time has set the stage for what is in place now. Where would we be today without the greater Waitaki power stations? Of course, that was before the bureaucracy of the Resource Management Act.

While I agree with what was achieved back then, we did foresee some of the problems that we are facing today. Most of our rivers then were clean and corporate farming was in its infancy.

So the Ruataniwha system does have restrictions, but none of these should be seen as insurmountable restrictions. As New Zealanders we have never let things get in our way. We just find a way through. So where has that gone now?

I have always believed that we need to store water. We don’t have a water shortage as our rainfall is sufficient to supply all the water we need. We need to hold some of this water which causes so much damage when it arrives in huge amounts usually over the winter months. I understand we store about 2% of our total rainfall.

Why do we need a water storage facility?

If we store the water it will prevent some of the flood damage and flood events can be managed to some degree. During the dry months when the rivers are low and our river fish are under stress we can keep a minimum flow which will lessen the stress on our fisheries. This should be good for the environmental group.

At the same time we can increase production on some of the land which is drought prone, which is where I see the real problem for some folk. If increased production means nitrification of the remaining water ways then let’s stop everything, and with this sentiment I would have to agree.

It is time to dig a bit deeper and find if there are any other ways of intensifying agriculture and horticulture without causing any stress to our environment. After all there are some big issues at stake. The problem is we have two groupings of thought.
The environmental people who say we cannot keep leaching nutrients into our soils and water ways. Something that almost all of us would agree. After all we have a Ministry for the Environment which have been tasked with halting pollution.
The primary producers who have been given the task of lifting production to meet the worlds demand for more food. There is no doubt that we need more food production and New Zealand must take it’s part in meeting this need.
Up until now there has been only one school of thought on the way we fertilise our crops. Many have tried and failed to lead the way through to different methods. The closest any one came to a breakthrough was the RPR people who have, by and large, been bought out or kept in control by the Co-ops. Even these Co-op people cannot always agree amongst themselves. Just go to the Fertiliser Conferences and listen to the academics debate these issues.

So what is it we need to change to make this scheme work?

I have had the absolute privilege to be able to visit companies and universities in other countries where they have been struggling with the same issues we are facing here. It doesn’t have to be ground breaking science. In other parts of the world crops are grown and production is lifting without the pollution problems. They are doing this using the required amount of bulk fertilisers but applying them using different methods, and with a greater use of liquid fertilisers. In the USA they apply 30% of their fertilisers this way.

The sad facts are that in a lot of cases we are using fertilisers which were developed in the 1850’s and we haven’t kept up with where most of the agricultural world is today in terms of fertilisers or their methods of application. There are programmes which I have been using for over 10 years now which will mostly meet the terms and conditions of the Ruataniwha scheme. This would tick all the boxes for both the Ministry for the Environment and also allow for the much needed lift in production which the world’s population so badly needs.