The country’s biggest farming show was a lightning rod for strong political views from the agricultural sector
Farmers have been placed right in the centre of the political fracas over the past months with policies like taxes on emissions and environmental regulations earning the ire of the agricultural sector.
It’s left hundreds of thousands of votes up for grabs by whichever party can curry the favour of primary producers, and at this year’s summer Fieldays it was readily apparent.
The mud and rain was replaced with a smaller crowd and the sun beating down on politicians like Jacinda Ardern and Christopher Luxon, each of whom took to the streets of the southern hemisphere’s largest agricultural event to press flesh.
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And while crowds were a bit thin this year due to the postponement to the summer, a time when more farmers will be on their land doing their thing, it didn’t affect the size of the event itself.
Fieldays is essentially a temporary small town, erected in the fields south of Hamilton as a Mecca for the gumboot-wearing and the Swanndri-clad. The makeshift municipality almost certainly leads in per-capita stakes for mullets, silver moustaches and ute ownership.
On top of that, it’s the ultimate gathering point for a voter base that Labour will be trying to get a firmer grip on again as next year’s general election approaches.
That might be a tough ask. Ardern’s visit earlier in the week was met with hecklers, and a fair amount of vendors voiced concerns with what environmental regulations and taxes meant for their business interests.
If such disdain is widely felt, it’s up to Luxon and his team to capitalise on it effectively.
He told media at the event that the current Government hasn’t backed the farmers.
“What is obvious is this Government is not supporting the agricultural sector at all,” he said. “We should be incredibly positive as a country about this sector ... it got us through the GFC, it got us through Covid and it will get us through the tough times that are coming economically for New Zealand.”
He said being a farmer in New Zealand right now was a tough prospect, with “regulatory overload” he described as akin to playing tennis and having to fend off a barrage of 10 balls at once.
But over in the rural living pavilion, which housed the two major political parties stalls amidst the Ginsu knives and massage chairs, Labour list MP Dan Rosewarne said he’d found the reception relatively positive.
“People have been quite reasonable. When you talk to them face to face and they have a politician listening to what they have to say, I think that goes a long way,” he said. “Especially in this environment where there’s no keyboard, no Twitter profiles.”
He said some people had approached with hostility, but having clear policies up on the wall of the stall allowed them to reach an understanding.
Rosewarne said it seemed like people were still undecided, and with almost a year to go until the next general election, there was still time for things to change in a big way.
“In history we’ve seen similar cycles happen,” he said. “2005 with Helen Clark, it probably feels very similar now… so we know we’re going to have to work hard.”
Across the aisles of horse saddles and hot sauce samples was another relatively new MP manning his party’s stall.
National MP Sam Uffindell said the response had been very positive for his party.
“We’ve had a number of people, farmers and growers, coming up and saying we’d better get this Government out of there,” he said. “They’re really relying on us to win.”
He said the anger and emotion was evident.
“So the message to us is we need to make sure we work bloody hard and get our job done for them.”
Over at the New Conservative stall, a sideshow game involving pelting balls at pictures of both left-wing and right-wing politicians was stopped by Fieldays management.
It seems more and more that farming has become a political act.
In the byways of Fieldays, there were two main conversations to overhear - discussions of what new tool, vehicle or machinery was on offer ("I'm a Makita man, myself"), or politics. Men with their sunglasses on the back of their head sat at picnic tables and compared emissions taxes to North Korean-style authoritarian policies while they swigged back L&P.
There’s a lot of emotion out in rural New Zealand about the changing world. It’s come into the cities in the form of tractor convoys, but for most of the urban population, its a far-off and easy to forget sense of disquiet.
But Luxon won’t overlook the political capital of getting the farmers on side.
He said the farmers he has spoken to understand the need to get economic feasibility and sustainability working in concert.
“Farming today is very different from five years ago, 10 years ago, 16 years ago, and it will be different five years, 10 years, 15 years' time from now,” he said.
He said the problem wasn’t having regulations to reach climate goals, but rather the way it had been done - a set of rules he called confusing and “working at cross-purposes to each other”.
National instead would institute a more sector-lead approach, working with the sector to figure out the best set of rules and make sure they make sense.
There’s perhaps two ways of looking at that - involving the people who know best in the process of changing farming as we know it. That surely sounds like a noble cause. But will it be in the best interest of the sector to advocate for stronger environmental protections?
That’s the tightrope both major political parties are navigating as they try and get the mix right for farmers in a way that allows for the thriving of the country’s biggest export industry and the environmental sustainability - while keeping the rural vote in their corner.
But talking to the vendors at Fieldays, it is clear enough who is winning right now.
Seddon Smith works in sales for Hostservice, a company that develops containerised kitchens as a temporary catering solution for film sets, aged care homes or big events.
He said with the war for staff amongst growers, many are installing infrastructure like the Hostservice kitchens in order to sweeten the pot for potential workers.
The company shifted tack in order to market to the agricultural sector, as hurting growers become willing to part with the money needed to provide their staff with meals on site.
Smith said it’s just one of the ways he’s seen sector stakeholders under pressure at Fieldays this year.
“People aren’t too fond of Labour right now around here,” he said.
