Released in June and entitled Good Morning Asia, the report was produced by North Otago farmers Blair and Jane Smith, national winners of the 2012 Ballance Farm Environment Awards.
In their role as ambassadors for NZ agriculture, the Smiths travelled to Asia in April to study a number of key markets for NZ sheep, beef and dairy products.
Facilitated by NZFE, the trip gave them the chance to learn more about offshore markets, exchange views on topics of crucial interest to NZ farmers and to showcase NZ’s stance on agricultural sustainability.
Polson said the report is a comprehensive and interesting account of the challenges facing marketers of NZ meat and dairy products.
“I believe every farmer should read this report. It’s written by farmers for farmers and it will be obvious to anyone reading it that Blair and Jane have put considerable time and thought into how some of these issues can be addressed.“
"I believe every farmer should read this report. It’s written by farmers for farmers . . ."
Alistair Polson
Farm Environment Trust chairman
“They don’t have all the answers, of course, but they do offer some extremely useful ideas on how we can improve our marketing in Asian countries.”
Polson, who is also Special Agricultural Trade Envoy for NZ, said the report makes it clear that Asian markets offer significant potential for NZ producers.
“We’ve been doing business in European markets for well over a century but, outside of Japan, we are really just getting started in Asia so we need to build solid relationships with our Asian trade partners and we need to get the right structures in place for this to happen.
“While the marketers of our meat and dairy produce have made huge progress in China, the report highlights that we still have a lot of work to do to ensure that we build relationships that are sustainable in the long-term.”
