A storm in a sheep dip: Lake Hawea Station on Country Calendar

Farming is a business. In fact, it is right up there with a couple of other contenders for being the world’s oldest business. When the primeval hunter gatherers decided to put down roots (literally) and grew more than they could eat themselves they created the world’s first market. The farmers that did the best were the ones that convinced buyers that their produce was worth paying more for. At the time it was just common sense, but in time this came to be called marketing. That anyone should be up in arms about the Lake Hawea Station programme on Country Calendar, or think it is ‘an insult to farmers’, seems to go against millennia of farmers trying to get the best price for their products.

Geoff and Justine Ross (full disclosure, I used to work with Geoff in his pre 42 Below days) bought this station a few years back and are running it with the marketing nous that they have used to such effect in the past. The station is carbon negative, they take great (some would say excessive) care of their livestock, they use regenerative techniques, and there are logos everywhere. They do this because it makes business sense and because it helps make a sustainable business that looks after the land and treats livestock with a least a semblance of respect. What’s not to like? Apparently quite a lot.

Much of the response to the Country Calendar episode has been hysterical. Nearly as hysterical as the response to the Spinning Jenny, the steam engine, the motor car, Elvis Presley, and 20/20 cricket. New things have always troubled some people. I agree that playing classical music to farm animals is unlikely to make much difference other than to mildly annoy the shearers but don’t throw out the baby with the Beethoven. The changes they’ve made in the shearing shed make good TV, but this is about so much more.

Since their hard work with 42 Below turned into a bucket of money, Geoff and Justine haven’t always replicated that success, but no one could ever accuse them of not trying. Personally, I think Geoff made some mistakes when he was running Moa beer. But then I also told him that the shape of his 42 Below bottle would never sell, so what do I know? Show me a businessman who hasn’t made any mistakes and I’ll show you a liar.

New Zealand is a long way from anywhere and our products come with large shipping costs which automatically makes them expensive compared to the local stuff. Added to which most of our farms are small by global standards so there are few economies of scale. To get over this price imbalance it helps to have a pretty robust explanation to the world as to why they should pay more. This is where marketing comes in, and to get a better price, we really need to be the Icebreaker of agricultural produce, not the McDonald’s.

The whole point of marketing is explaining to a consumer why a product is worth paying more for. It’s why New Zealand milk products generally maintain a premium overseas. It’s why French champagne costs more than Pelorus. It’s why craft beer costs more than Lion Red. And why Europeans don’t want us to call our cheese ‘feta’.

We tell the world that our products come at a premium because of the wonderful conditions in which they are produced. Our cows not only munch on better grass, but their souls are lifted by their wonderful surrounding. Our bees make the best Manuka honey because if it’s not grown in New Zealand then Manuka just becomes tea tree.

If Geoff and Justine are right with their approach to farming, then other farmers have been shown a way forward to help differentiate themselves and command a premium for their products. If they’re wrong, they lose money. We have nothing to lose but our prejudices.

If you think it was the worst episode of Country Calendar ever and you couldn’t watch any more than two minutes of it, how do you think it was the most viewed episode ever? And for those people who castigated CC for not showing a programme about ‘real farmers in the real world’ there were 39 other episodes in the series for them to watch.

Yes, they may be millionaires who made their money from selling vodka and who can afford to take chances, but that’s the point. The New Zealand farming organisation Dairy Tomorrow has four principles: Bold, Open, Innovative and Collaborative. It would be good to see more of these characteristics at play in this debate. Farming may be the oldest profession in the world, but it doesn’t mean it can’t learn some new tricks.