Sounds like a lot of trucking nonsense to me

08-03-2010 | Alan Emerson

Annette Scott's article on new stock cartage guidelines costing farmers and transport companies millions of dollars (Feb 22) had me so fascinated I decided to get the consultative document and have a look for myself.

According to the article the new guidelines would require a $150,000 additional cost to each truck and trailer unit and the requirement to carry a lot less stock.

The document came from the Meat Industry Association and the Road Transport Forum who agreed in 2006 to form a joint working group. The report is well written, prescriptive in my view and horrific for farmers who will, inevitably, end up paying the bill.

Talking to truckies, carting cattle will mean one level and not two and carting sheep three levels not four. With simple maths that means almost doubling the cost for carting cattle and increasing the cost for sheep by about a quarter.

My base position is that the state of the New Zealand meat industry is dire indeed. We can't absorb any further costs, end of story. While not being opposed to any animal welfare debate I need convincing that if farmers have to pay more to get stock processed because of "animal welfare issues" then the consumer should be happy to pay more to compensate that expense.

To impose a cost without return is unacceptable in today's market.

What also concerns me is that the downstream effects of the initiatives discussed in the report are major.

For a start if a carrier can only cart 28 cattle and not 40 or 50 the cost to the farmer will greatly increase. Further, at a time when we are trying to conserve energy we'll be doing exactly the opposite with a lot more trucks on the road. If you can only cart half the current amount of cattle you will, by simple maths need twice the trucks to cart the same number of animals.

Averaging the cattle and sheep numbers by my maths will mean we're going to see a third more trucks on the road. One carrier estimated 63% more. In addition to the increased fuel used, think of the addition to our carbon footprint from the additional exhaust gases.

Also at a time when the government is increasing the weights trucks can carry, to presumably conserve energy, why are we suggesting doing the opposite in provincial NZ?

Further what is likely to happen is that we'll move to having more and smaller trucks on the road. You don't need a 400 or 500 horsepower rig to haul 28 cattle plus a single tiered trailer.

So at a time when we're told the country needs to be more efficient and more productive we have a consultative document telling the rural sector to be less productive and efficient.

Interestingly I spoke to several trucking firms and a few farmers and no-one claims to have known anything about the document. I spoke to a major meat processing company who didn't know much either.

I suppose what gets me is the Wellington approach and culture where you can present a paper without any practical knowledge of the issues currently facing farmers. I would have hoped the MIA, dominated as it is by the farmer co-operatives had that practical knowledge. I would have also hoped there was someone in the Road Transport Forum that understood practical agriculture, but obviously not.

While I accept that the status of the paper is a "discussion document"' these documents have a habit of gaining traction.

What I don't accept is the presumption that you can just increase costs without any return and then present a paper with a ton of options that are impractical and unrealistic. Visually checking each animal every two hours would require glass sides and emptying effluent containers after each trip is simplistic when you consider the MIA members, the freezing companies, don't have effluent tanks to unload into.

What we should be doing is decreasing costs within the supply chain not increasing them and the meat companies should be more aware of that than anyone. Further it will have a multiplying effect with a lot of stock travelling more than once.

And where are Feds in the mix? It is a consultative document that has gone to them so where's the discussion and consultation? They put back the NAIT initiative for months with a King Canute-like approach and when there is an issue that is real, expensive and impractical they're not in the ballpark.

Mind you farmers should be philosophical. A few years ago there was the suggestion of having bedding in stock trucks. I wonder where we'll go next, counselling animals for the after life?

* Alan Emerson is a semi-retired Wairarapa farmer and businessman; dath-emerson@wizbiz.co.nz

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