Belgium and Beyond !

Some of these notes may get a bit monotonous and may not reflect what were terrific meetings....

Brussels meetings – 2nd July, 2013

Maeve Whyte, director of British Agriculture Building(BAB)-National Farmers Union 15000 lobbyists in Brussels, 28 member states, 20 languages, 500 million European consumers, UK farming unions here since 1972.

EU had history from the ending of WW2 to prevent another war. Brussels chosen due to location (due to war/conflict history), Also Luxembourg and Strasbourg.
EU motto: unity in diversity
EU anthem: ode to joy.
Number of institutions: EU commission ( each member state has a head of a dept within the commission-everyone agrees that iit is too big but no one is willing to give up a seat, basically if a new member comes in they create a new commission seat). European Parliament, Agricultural council (policy).
Amount of money paid in to the EU is determined on the gdp of the country. The higher your gdp the
More you pay.

Maeve Whyte

Maurice House, Agri counsellor to the US mission to the EU
Came to Europe in 2010. 80% of all subsidies come from Europe and Japan. Started off with a very aggressive talk on how ridiculous European subsidies are.
Basically said that they allowed Europe to maintain subsidies so that they didn’t have wars (maintained a territorial peace). Now it’s gone too far and they are starting to take more interest.
Hiding behind their border protects their market.  A report was done that showed that NZ could send lamb to London with less of a carbon footprint than what could be sent by Wales to London. The report was not published widely in Europe.
EU asked US to do a trade agreement with them to help the struggling EU farmers. It means approx 90 billion to the US.
Talked about precautionary principles as a trade barrier; an example was Australian growers using fire blight to keep NZ apples out of Australia. Also use organic GMO, climate change as reasons to control their economy.
“no room for Gucci agriculture when people are starving ” They need to make sure that they do “responsible agriculture”.
Maurice basically talked about European snobbery. European’s should let the quality of the food dictate price and not use subsidies to artificially keep the price down.

Dave Harrison, regional manager, Europe Beef + Lamb NZ ltd.
Working on promotion within supermarkets to increase sales for their exporters. Aiming for all range of supermarkets, high value and middle range. Hard to assess promotion value due to decreasing production levels. Aiming to see a per kg increase, however haven’t had much luck in the last 12 months. Previous 2 years has been good.
2006, 26 million sheep, this year around 18 million sheep production in NZ.

Volumes still good, just a case of increasing sales revenue. From 1990 to now NZ has 46% less sheep but only produce 7% less meat.
Australia seems to do a good job at promoting the Lamb industry compared to NZ.

They have a view to get to as many markets as possible, got a good government relationship.
Focus is to make sure the guys actually selling the product have a role and not letting them rely on the likes of Dave too much.
The improvement this coming year will be due to drought conditions in the UK, not just because of the NZ product being what it is to extract a premium.

Dave Harrison Beef and Lamb NZ - Europe

Jacob B Hansen, Director General Fertilizers Europe asbl.
They saw the need to work as a European group to be seen better in the light of the end food consumer.
Have a need to develop best practice to be accountable for environmental, occupational, health and safety for workers and consumers.
They have strict rules to prevent collusion between producers of fertilizers. However they collect sales data and crop forecasting data to provide members to help strategically plan for the coming months or year. This is only available for members within the Fertilizer organisation.
Currently working towards a new program called “towards Infinity” where they aim to take responsibility for the whole supply and use chain. As an organisation they are looking at drainage/leakage into water sources, air pollution etc. Called it a Stewardship.
Generally their members are high cost producers, their aim is to ultimately help their members develop in such a way to get market share on a high cost product, and be less affected by a low cost supply market.
Ultimately to enable maximum use of resources to increase sustainability of European agriculture. Ensure the best nutrient use efficiency and to reduce the carbon footprint of food production.
Main competitors are Russia and North Africa, not china. China is too risky and does not have a good environmental image.
Current predictions on supply for Nitrogen, potash, phosphate are at least 300 years away. Current debate is still the wasteful use of global fertilizer that needs to be addressed.

Luc Groot, Head of Brussels office Dutch organisation for Agriculture & Horticulture(LTO Nederland).
EU lobbyist for Dutch farmers. Represents 50000 farmers, 2 million Ha, primary production, 70% of land area is farmed, employment is 224000, Agri business 650000(9%). Gross production value is 23 billion Euro.
Total farmers is 75000, LTO is the largest representative body, similar to the NFU from UK.
LTO represents 55000 entrepreneurs. Goal is to have freedom to farm, reinforce our market share and entrepreneurism.
Current issues in the Netherlands: size of farms, Nature conservation, Antibiotics, Animal welfare(supermarkets wanting to sell “sustainable meat”)

Made the statement that Dutch consumers do not value food due to it being so cheap. People have lost the connection to where food comes from.
Lobby in Brussels is different as it is a long process with more stakeholders, more layers of interest. Team of international affairs: 3 people, 1 trainee. The function is to be eyes and ears, information exchange, coordinate public affairs actions, advise on international affairs(WTO, CAP, competition and EU budget).

30% of subsidies in Holland is coupled to greening(nature strip). LTO is in Brussels due to a movement from the Hague to Brussels plus agriculture.
Crucial for lobby: be on time, procedures, key players.
Priorities for 2013/14:
Common agricultural policy, Animal Health/welfare, European budgets, EIP, Competition policy.

BEVERSE HOEVEKAAS
Milk and cheese farmer
Willy De Ville and Patrick. Wily De Ville working in dairy industry for 40 years.
Some of his milk and yogurt is being used now on plane flights. 50% of the regions population has a job in agriculture. Currently 50 farms, only 7 active in dairy. Need at least 2000 lts to get it picked up by big dairy co-op.
Generally people leaving the industry due to complicated and expensive work needed.
Currently milking 150 cows, producing around 10000 litres per cow per year. Using robotic milking machine.

Most farmers farm very late in their life and pass it down to grandson. Patrick studied agriculture at school to be able to take over the farm. His study helped them implement new machines and technology, including cow houses to make the cows more comfortable.

Using a lot of straw to help the calves and older cows.
Part of Patricks’ and Willy’s study in cheese making included theory and practical. Brought a 300 lt cheese vat and started making cheese, had such good reviews that they continued. Initially made it only once a week. Also helped teach people to make cheese even hosting exchange cheese makers, this was part of Willy’s job for industry/government. 

Now they do 900 lts worth of milk per week and make herb cheese as well as normal cheeses. By going into cheese helped double milk price. However they now have to have more people on wages. Current wage rate is €35/ hr for general work.
They make good money with cheese because it is a niche product that the big companies don’t make. Current prod is 500 cheeses per hour. Supermarkets make 100% profit after buying it from the farmer. This farmer sells it himself and keeps that margin.

Current issue is health problems due to lysteria, so they have to be very careful in making the cheese.
Milking machines automatically lets the cow into the machine, milk it and works out how much it will get with electronic sensors. Will even help regulate a cows feed.
Machine cost €200000, called DeLaval. Now they have an automatic milker they have more time to make cheese. Saved 3 hrs. Every morning by not having to manually milk. Each machine can theoretically milk 75 cows, so they have 2. Currently milk 24 hours a day. Basically one cow goes in, gets measured, milked and fed. When that process is finished the machine automatically cleans itself, gates are opened, one cow out and another moves in.

Visited the memorials for the fallen soldiers in WW2 whilst getting an outline of the  history of the area from  Mr Allan Forbes, our tour guide for the next couple of days.

. Later we went to the Last post ceremony at the Menin Gate, also getting some of our group to lay a wreath in token of our respect for the soldiers. We had New Zealand, Australia, France and UK represented.

New Zealand Memorial at Belgian Cemetery 

A sight all too familiar in Belgium and Northern Fance.

Laying a wreath of flowers during the last post at Menin Gate, Ypres Belgium was Carly Buttrose of Australia, Steve Wilkins of New Zealand and Thibaud Brocard of France.

A nice crop of six row barley to lighten the mood.