What do the New Zealand pastoral industries have to offer farmers in other countries around the temperate zones of the world? The answer is.....a great deal. 

Under threat from pollution, resource depletion, urbanisation and low profitability, farming industries in many countries are looking for answers, which New Zealand farmers and their agribusiness companies have and are willing to share.

New Zealand is the largest exporter of internationally traded dairy products, the world's biggest producer of lamb meat, and has the biggest farmed deer industry. It also exports large volumes of beef and wool. 

These pastoral products have reputations in food and fibre markets for the highest quality, being safe to eat, and fit-for-purpose. The production methods are quality assured and the farming systems are sustainable, which is very important to New Zealanders, whose country has been called "the jewel of the South Pacific."

WHERE IS NEW ZEALAND?

New Zealand is located in the South-West corner of the Pacific Ocean between latitudes 34 and 47 degrees South. Our closest neighbour, Australia, is some 1,600kms to the West. The land mass of New Zealand is long and narrow, being 1,600kms by only 450kms at its widest point, and it stretches from the subtropical top of the North Island to the cool southern end of the South Island.

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Only one-quarter of the land area of New Zealand is lower than 200m above sea level, and hill country and snow-capped mountain ranges dominate the landscape. A high mountain range the length of the South Island, and a central volcanic plateau and mountain range extending in a North-Easterly direction through the North Island have a big influence on the weather patterns. When coupled with the prevailing Westerly trade winds, these uplands produce wet zones to the West, dry zones to the East and a variety of alpine, hill country, down country, desert, forest and river plain areas. The topography of New Zealand is varied, with 50 percent of the land classifiable as steep, 20 per cent as moderately hilly and only 30 percent as rolling or flat.

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Because of its location, its topography, and its 15,000kms of coastline New Zealand has a temperate, `Westerly maritime' climate. Annual rainfall ranges from 300mm in the drier Eastern areas to over 8,000mm in the wettest areas of the South-West. Although there are sharp regional contrasts, climatic extremes are rare, making New Zealand ideally suited to pastoral farming.

New Zealand's weather comes from a procession of anticyclones, bringing warm, clear skies in summer and cold and frosty conditions in winter. Frontal rainfall is from the West and South-West, with occasional cyclones moving down on to the country from the Northern tropics. This mix of anticyclones and depressions produces a variable weather pattern, modified by the topography and aspect of any particular farming location. For example, warm, wet air arrives on the West Coast of the South Island, hits the Southern Alps and rises, when it cools it releases moisture as rain or snow. To the East, this creates an area of rain shadow and semi-arid districts such as Central Otago and the Canterbury Plains, where as little as 300mm of rainfall are received annually. In the North Island, the influence of the uplands on the weather is less pronounced, and most regions receive between 600mm and 1,500mm of rainfall annually. 

Because of the temperate climate, few farming regions are covered in snow for any length of time, and pasture grows all year round in the North and for 8 or 9 months in the South.

The mean annual sea-level temperature varies from 15CO in the North to 9CO in the South. Day-time temperatures during the summer range between 15CO and 30CO and 0CO to 15CO in the winter. Plant and animal growth rates respond very readily to the equable temperatures, and regular falls of rain.

The equable climate is very important to the New Zealand economy. Pastoral farming, horticulture, forestry, grape growing, market gardening, and tourism all depend on the mild climate. The constraints imposed by the climate are to be seen all around, in the distribution of native vegetation, crops and even population.

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The total land area is 27.1 million hectares, or 270,100 square kilometres, i.e. the same size as Japan or the British Isles. However, the population is considerably less than those countries as New Zealand only has four million people. Pastoral farming extends over 13.5 million hectares (grazing, arable, fodder and fallow land), which is more than 80 percent of the occupied land area and nearly half of the total land area. Sheep and beef farming extend over 10 million hectares, and dairy farming a further 2 million hectares. There are 24,000 sheep and beef farms, 14,000 dairy farms, 2,000 deer farms, 1,500 arable farms and about 10,000 orchards.

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About 15 percent of New Zealanders are Maori, and 80 percent are of European descent. Other significant ethnic groups are Indian, Chinese, and Pacific Island Polynesians. Although the economy is highly dependent on production from the land, the vast majority of the people, 85 percent, live in urban areas. In the 1996 Agricultural Production Survey 162,000 people identified themselves as working full or part-time, paid or unpaid, in agriculture.

The first settlers in New Zealand, the Maori, came from Polynesia about 1,000 years ago. These settlers found themselves in a land untouched by humans, and without any land mammals. The absence of mammals, except for two bat species, led to the development of a unique flora and fauna, with many large flightless birds, including the legendary moa, and the national bird, the kiwi.

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LAND OWNERSHIP

The first European arrival was the Dutchman, Abel Tasman in 1642, in his search for the mythical Southern Continent. The next arrival, over a century later in 1769, was Captain James Cook. Cook mapped the North and South Islands, studied the Maori, and collected examples of flora and fauna. By 1840 there were about 2,000 European settlers among an estimated 100,000 Maori. New Zealand's founding document (Constitution), the Treaty of Waitangi, was signed that year. The Treaty gave the Queen the right to buy Maori land, and made New Zealand a British colony. In return, the Maori were given the rights and privileges of British subjects with a clause giving them undisturbed proprietorship of the land, forests and fisheries. Today the Treaty is recognised in much of New Zealand's legislation.

Customary Maori land ownership is now less than 2 million hectares, either farmed by Maori directly and through incorporations of multiple owners, or leased to non-Maori farmers.

By far the greatest proportion of farming land is privately owned, usually by farming families with assets of $1 million or more. Only 3% of farms are in oversaeas ownership and the extent of corporate farming ownership is low, but rising.

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New Zealand is unique among developed countries for its reliance on the export of pastoral products, wood, and fish for some 60% of its export earnings. The manufacturing and service sectors and the export of crude materials contribute the rest. 

In recent years New Zealand has been known for having 20 times more sheep than people, but that ratio is now down to 10-to-one. It also has more beef cattle, and more dairy cattle, than its present population of 4 million people.

The overwhelming impression of New Zealand to visitors is of a green and pleasant land, surrounded by sea and covered either by pastures or forests. Large numbers of grazing animals are seen from the road, confined behind wire fences. 

At first glance travellers may not realise how much time and effort has gone into creating and maintaining the farmland, pastoral productivity and the commercial or private forests.

New Zealand land owners have, over 150 years of farming and forestry experience, devised very well-adapted and appropriate management systems to work with the soils, climate, plants, trees and animals for the purposes of primary production.

In the main, these systems are not high-input or machinery-intensive. 

Following the initial major environmental change from native bush cover to pasture or plantation, the approach is low-input, environmentally friendly and sustainable.

Fertiliser applications, animal stocking rates, harvesting methods and the use of water resources are now designed to make low impacts on the modified ecosystem and to ensure that the yields of meat, milk and fibre can be maintained indefinitely.

The ambition of every New Zealand farmer is one of sustainability, i.e. "to leave the land in a similar or better condition than I found it."

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New Zealand's Agricultural Excellence, based on its pastoral technologies, is being shared around the world, from Europe through Asia and Africa, to the Americas and in Oceania. The principles of low-input, sustainable pastoral and horticultural production, are being adapted to a wide range of continental, temperate and even sub-tropical climates. Farmers in other countries who wish to cut their machinery costs, fuel demands, animal housing requirements and reliance on government subsidies, have taken New Zealand products and services and used them successfully to revolutionise their farming.

The seeds, genetics, farm equipment and knowledge are available from New Zealand companies and advisors who are exporting around the world.

In the following pages you will learn a great deal more about the methods and technologies behind New Zealand's pastoral success story, and why you should consider adopting New Zealand's principles of pastoral production.