New Zealand

graham99

Member
NZ sheep farming has had the benefit of UK pregnancy scanners appearing at the right time each year just as UK sheep farming has had the benefit of NZ shearers turning up. These disruptions could cause problems for both host countries.

Currently Queenstown airport is closed, several very new high rise hotels are mothballed indefinitely. Several thousand jobs have evaporated out of the tourist sector with many internationals on working visas stuck there. Ski season is still months away. Food production industries aren't such a bad thing to be into nowadays.
the funny part is , air new zealand laid a lot of staff off in the first week . didn't even look at the sub .
 

RushesToo

Member
Location
Fingringhoe
Untill the visitors come back?
Visitors coming will be a manageable number, be told to behave properly and if infected will quaratined and contcts tracked.
It is so much a cheaper and easy task if you are searching for say 5 cases rather than tracking and tracing the 2,000 cases the UK had today [and the day before that and the day before that - and for 14 days ......]

Early control was key.
Early control is the cheapest way to control this.

Every single epidemiologist knew this, you needed to ask and listen, or if this was too difficult - get on the phone and ask South Korea, Singapore [or any SARS, MERS countries] how to do it.
Most importantly you needed to do something - if you didn't you would kill people.

UK is 37,000+ dead - and still counting.

New Zealand, I salute you and your leadership*

*Please could you ask your Gov to explain this to ours?
 

kiwi pom

Member
Location
canterbury NZ
Untill the visitors come back?

Quite possibly. I think it would be foolish to think we can keep every case out.
At the moment I think its just flight crew that don't have to quarantine on arrival (some international flights are still running)
Its my guess some non kiwi, essential workers are still creeping in, but have to quarantine. Some businesses are starting to complain they cant get international workers back (even though there's thousands unemployed)
Dairy farms want their cheap milkers and contractors will soon want there northern hemisphere drivers back.
Also there's talk of a "bubble" between NZ and Australia if the Aussie's get virus free.
Its bound to slip in, then we'll find out how good the track and trace is.
 

beardface

Member
Location
East Yorkshire
Visitors coming will be a manageable number, be told to behave properly and if infected will quaratined and contcts tracked.
It is so much a cheaper and easy task if you are searching for say 5 cases rather than tracking and tracing the 2,000 cases the UK had today [and the day before that and the day before that - and for 14 days ......]

Early control was key.
Early control is the cheapest way to control this.

Every single epidemiologist knew this, you needed to ask and listen, or if this was too difficult - get on the phone and ask South Korea, Singapore [or any SARS, MERS countries] how to do it.
Most importantly you needed to do something - if you didn't you would kill people.

UK is 37,000+ dead - and still counting.

New Zealand, I salute you and your leadership*

*Please could you ask your Gov to explain this to ours?

Trouble is there tourism industry won't survive on a handful a day. And until a vaccine is found or the virus in hot spot countries dissapears completely then they never will be able to fully reopen the tourism industry.

I posted a video by David Starkey the other day, which basically sums up why every country has pretty much committed economic suicide.
 
Visitors coming will be a manageable number, be told to behave properly and if infected will quaratined and contcts tracked.
It is so much a cheaper and easy task if you are searching for say 5 cases rather than tracking and tracing the 2,000 cases the UK had today [and the day before that and the day before that - and for 14 days ......]

Early control was key.
Early control is the cheapest way to control this.

Every single epidemiologist knew this, you needed to ask and listen, or if this was too difficult - get on the phone and ask South Korea, Singapore [or any SARS, MERS countries] how to do it.
Most importantly you needed to do something - if you didn't you would kill people.

UK is 37,000+ dead - and still counting.

New Zealand, I salute you and your leadership*

*Please could you ask your Gov to explain this to ours?
New Zealand is a strong country
 

stewart

Member
Horticulture
Location
Bay of Plenty NZ
Trouble is there tourism industry won't survive on a handful a day. And until a vaccine is found or the virus in hot spot countries dissapears completely then they never will be able to fully reopen the tourism industry.

I posted a video by David Starkey the other day, which basically sums up why every country has pretty much committed economic suicide.
The tourism industry will be greatly reduced, it will have to rely on domestic tourism which will help to some degree but Kiwis will not pay the prices that overseas visitors were paying. NZ will have to go back to basics and rely on primary produce for exports, fortunately we are near the large populations of Asia and we have a very efficient infrastructure in place for exporting of primary produce.
 

stewart

Member
Horticulture
Location
Bay of Plenty NZ
It's a tiny country with a fraction of international travellers

NZ is a small country, slightly larger than the UK but still relatively small. International travellers from overseas were around 4m per year add to that the 3m kiwis travelling overseas and returning each year and we have 7m overseas arrivals, or around 140% of the population.

What is the point you are trying to make?

NZ has done quite well so far in containing Covid-19 part of that is due to our geographic location which undeniably gives NZ an advantage, but look at what else they did.

When the UK was promoting herd immunity and Boris was shaking hands with coronavirus patients NZ shut its borders and put some of the strictest lockdown rules in the world in place.

The daily updates from the government showed strong leadership and were well communicated, no dodging around awkward questions and when a minister got out of line was swiftly dealt with.

The stats between the two countries are quite startling.
NZ - total cases 1504, recovered 1481, deaths per m 3, active cases as at today 1
UK - total cases 271,222, recovered ?, deaths per m 562, active cases as at today ?

It may well turn out that NZ has taken the wrong course and we could be stuck in isolation from the rest of the world for years to come, who knows? Only time will tell, but instead of looking for excuses for the cluster fu¢k that the UK et. al. are in perhaps some accountability needs to be taken by those that put them there and a bit of credit given where it is due to those that have handled the pandemic more responsibly, NZ is one of them as is South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore and Germany.
 

robs1

Member
NZ is a small country, slightly larger than the UK but still relatively small. International travellers from overseas were around 4m per year add to that the 3m kiwis travelling overseas and returning each year and we have 7m overseas arrivals, or around 140% of the population.

What is the point you are trying to make?

NZ has done quite well so far in containing Covid-19 part of that is due to our geographic location which undeniably gives NZ an advantage, but look at what else they did.

When the UK was promoting herd immunity and Boris was shaking hands with coronavirus patients NZ shut its borders and put some of the strictest lockdown rules in the world in place.

The daily updates from the government showed strong leadership and were well communicated, no dodging around awkward questions and when a minister got out of line was swiftly dealt with.

The stats between the two countries are quite startling.
NZ - total cases 1504, recovered 1481, deaths per m 3, active cases as at today 1
UK - total cases 271,222, recovered ?, deaths per m 562, active cases as at today ?

It may well turn out that NZ has taken the wrong course and we could be stuck in isolation from the rest of the world for years to come, who knows? Only time will tell, but instead of looking for excuses for the cluster fu¢k that the UK et. al. are in perhaps some accountability needs to be taken by those that put them there and a bit of credit given where it is due to those that have handled the pandemic more responsibly, NZ is one of them as is South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore and Germany.
The uk has 38 million visitors each year that's ten times as many and millions more brits travel abroad as we are very close to other countries.
BAMES are far more likely to die from covid and I suspect we have a larger number here in proportion, I would suspect that as a general we arent as healthy in the UK either. NZ has done well in controlling ITS infection but the UK is a very different situation
 

stewart

Member
Horticulture
Location
Bay of Plenty NZ
The uk has 38 million visitors each year that's ten times as many and millions more brits travel abroad as we are very close to other countries.
BAMES are far more likely to die from covid and I suspect we have a larger number here in proportion, I would suspect that as a general we arent as healthy in the UK either. NZ has done well in controlling ITS infection but the UK is a very different situation
Excuses, Excuses, Excuses.
 

kiwi pom

Member
Location
canterbury NZ
Had to look up what a BAME was :facepalm:

The UK hasn't handled things over well but I don't think they ever had any chance at stamping out the virus. Too many people in too small a space, hundreds of flights, ferry's and a tunnel, plus all the illegals trying to get in.
Plus a large percentage of the population that are not going to do what they're told. I think they new early on that they couldn't stop it and tried to convince the population that herd immunity was the way forward but the public and the media were outraged by the deaths so they changed tactics even though they knew it was too late. They just have to ride it out now, but of course that doesn't make a very inspiring headline.
 

kiwi pom

Member
Location
canterbury NZ
The tourism industry will be greatly reduced, it will have to rely on domestic tourism which will help to some degree but Kiwis will not pay the prices that overseas visitors were paying. NZ will have to go back to basics and rely on primary produce for exports, fortunately we are near the large populations of Asia and we have a very efficient infrastructure in place for exporting of primary produce.

The tourism industry is going to lose a lot of businesses but I'm not sure its going to massively add to the unemployment numbers as many of the staff were tourists paying their way around the country.
I'm not sure losing thousands of backpackers is going to hurt that much (unless you've an old camper van to sell) they don't strike me as being big spenders .
I think its a chance for NZ to revamp the industry a bit, get rid of the freedom campers and the budget travellers and aim for the high end tourists that will spend a fortune. The problem being there isn't that much to do in some of these tourist centres because the established businesses manage to keep all the competition out.
 

stewart

Member
Horticulture
Location
Bay of Plenty NZ
The tourism industry is going to lose a lot of businesses but I'm not sure its going to massively add to the unemployment numbers as many of the staff were tourists paying their way around the country.
I'm not sure losing thousands of backpackers is going to hurt that much (unless you've an old camper van to sell) they don't strike me as being big spenders .
I think its a chance for NZ to revamp the industry a bit, get rid of the freedom campers and the budget travellers and aim for the high end tourists that will spend a fortune. The problem being there isn't that much to do in some of these tourist centres because the established businesses manage to keep all the competition out.
Many of our part time staff are either backpackers or RSE workers, with the borders closed we will lose both. We could then be in the position of having high unemployment and still nobody to do the work.
 

holwellcourtfarm

Member
Livestock Farmer
NZ has done spectacularly well in managing the virus. Congratulations.

By comparison we have seen a disaster although it could have been worse. Early on there was talk here of up to 500,000 deaths if we did nothing and that 20,000 deaths would be "a good result".

It was always going to be so much harder to control here than in NZ though for all the reasons folk have already given. The UK abandoned any effective border controls decades ago, just look at how many illegal immigrants, drugs and firearms arrive here each year! Combine that with the political reality that we will never accept any move towards a police state and any government here would have failed.

The big question now is what next?

NZ is going to have to reframe the economy and return to a greater reliance on primary industry exports. This is probably Jacinda's Achilles heel. She had made it clear throughout her leadership that she wants to see the NZ economy reduce its reliance on agriculture and horticulture. She now faces an existential crisis of economic reality. I wonder why we've heard nothing from Sir Michael Cullen recently?

We are no better though. Our travel, tourism and hospitality sector is almost as proportionally big as that of NZ and is now screaming for the rules to relax, effectively saying that deaths are a price worth paying. Our car industry is facing collapse, commercial landlords are facing a new reality where their income will be decimated and their demand will never recover (many business now realise they don't NEED big offices as home working does actually work). Throw Brexit into the mix and the attempt to negotiate new trade deals whilst we can't even agree internally what we want from them and the future is very uncertain.

In both countries the hard bit is about to start: how do you wean the economy off the emergency support without it collapsing?

We are living through "interesting times".
 

stewart

Member
Horticulture
Location
Bay of Plenty NZ
No locals to do it?
That's a loaded question! Yes there are locals to do it, not many are inclined to do the work we have available, very similar to the problems the UK fruit and veg growers have, hence the need to employ Eastern Europeans in the UK and backpackers or RSE workers in N.Z.
Fortunately we do have a large Indian population locally who will work 24/7 if you let them.
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

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    Votes: 79 42.0%
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  • 100% I’ve had enough of farming!

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Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

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As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
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