The Government recently released their 2022 budget, called the “Wellbeing Budget.”

‍

In this budget, the big priorities are addressing climate change, improving our healthcare system, and supporting lower-income households. For example, over 10 billion dollars has been assigned to healthcare, while there is a 1-billion-dollar package to help ease the cost of living for many New Zealanders.

‍

Farmers will also be receiving funding, both directly and indirectly, in this year’s budget. If you include pre-budget announcements, the total figure is around 1 billion dollars.

‍

The biggest cut of this money is the 790 million dollars that was announced pre-budget to help combat carbon emissions. Another pre-budget announcement was the 110 million dollars that’s been allocated to our biosecurity system. While the M. Bovis outbreak is nearly over in New Zealand, the government wants to focus on surveillance and tracking, so something like this can’t happen again. Considering what’s been going on in the last few years with M. Bovis, this allocation was no surprise.

‍

Over 115 million is going to be spent on farm advisor services. The goal is to help train accountants, farm advisors, and other service providers involved in the primary industry. Ideally, this will mean farmers will have access to better information and expertise.

‍

Another 40 million is going to be spent on creating a “Primary Industry Sector Transformation Plan.” The Ministry of Forestry said the goal of this is to, “identify high-impact actions that strengthen the performance of our primary sector.” Hopefully we’ll get more details on this part of the budget soon.

‍

60 million is being spent on improving broadband coverage. New Zealand’s internet speed is notoriously bad when compared to other first-world countries, so this will definitely help people that live rurally. Another smaller amount is the 5 million that is being targeted to Agritech.  

‍

Before the budget was announced, some industry leaders were hoping for money to be allocated to specific sectors, but many farmers were hoping for a budget that would address rising inflation.

‍

Federated Farmers president Andrew Hoggard said, “Basically, from our perspective, it would be mainly that they are going to focus on controlling inflation, sensible spending and quality of spend, rather than drunk sailor type spending, that would be our main thing.”

‍

One concerning point with the budget is that with over 2 million people being eligible for the new standard-of-living assistance money, inflation will likely increase as people will have extra money straight from the Government. Many think inflation will continue to rise, especially when considering how much money the Government has borrowed over the last 2 years.

‍

Many are surprised that the agriculture industry received as much funding as it did, as the current Government has seemed ambivert to the industry at times. However, the Government’s funding seems to help farmers more indirectly than directly. Yes, the funding for climate change initiatives and biosecurity helps Agriculture, but it can be a double-edged sword.

‍

Our primary industry was what got New Zealand through COVID-19 and lockdowns, so if the government really wanted to help the industry, they’d go after the excessive regulations rather than putting all the emphasis on addressing climate change. Yes, more investment into R & D would be helpful, but most of the farmers are suffering because of too much red tape, not because they need financial help from the government.

‍

More to come on this as we get clarity.