Aardvark

[Bruce Simpson]

This column is archived at: http://aardvark.co.nz/daily/2008/0211.shtml

Is our reliance on dairy farming going to cost us big-time in the medium to long-term?

Just how do we rationalise our destruction of carbon-sinking forestry with methane-belching dairy farms while we sit on the cusp of climate disaster?

And where do we turn when natural disaster strikes and our dairy receipts dry up?

Are we putting too many eggs in one basket with our reliance on primary industry to carry the country?

What about our smart young people with good ideas who find they can't get any interest or funding because all those with money are too busy pouring it into property or farming? Where will our hi-tech investment capital come from?

How come Alex may end up working in a milking shed while the idea he promoted gets commercialised by others half a world away -- perhaps simply because they had access to the necessary VC?

Is it time to broaden our horizons and wean Kiwis off their infatuation with property and into the potentially far more lucrative world of angel and venture capital financing?

[bharmer]

In your article you say "Trevor Mallard is reportedly responsible for pulling the rather devastating "Chapter 13" from a report that already slammed NZ as being "not quite as green as we think"."

can you point to any reliable source that reported this? I heard him on Nat. Radio this morning defending the omission of the chapter, but I also heard a definite claim that there was no external or ministerial pressure to have the chapter removed. He would be very silly to say this if there was evidence to the contrary.

[Bruce Simpson]

[techy]

We'll all be screwed. Meanwhile the asian countries do all the manufacturing.

Southland is filthy and running out of water.
The increase in dairy farm conversions is incredible, I saw a map comparing 1998 with 2006 and its just a mass of cow *beep* now.

[Bruce Simpson]

[k1500]

[Bruce Simpson]

[k1500]

[hans]

It's not just forests that are being converted to diary farms; land used for growing crops is also being converted. Assuming that the global milk price hike is temporary, we are in serious danger of having ramped up our milk production to a global market that's dropped again, and having to import our fruit and vegies. That would mean no financial benefit to the extra milk, and increased imports because we can't produce the other food that we need.

I seem to recall hearing the "we need to diversify beyond agriculture" message since I was born. I also remember hearing "we need to build a knowledge based economy" for over a decade. Telling me about it isn't going to change anything.

I think that a big problem with investors in NZ is that very few of them understand the tech industry; well, you can, but you're likely to fail. You can't invest in an industry that you don't understand. That's a capability that needs to be built up. Even inside the tech industry, venture capitalists try to stick within industries that they understand, and tend to do badly when investing outside their area.

So how exactly could we increase the number of competent VCs in the tech industry? I'm not sure exactly. Maybe we should collect a group of those involved in existing successful high-tech ventures and have the government provide some sort of incentive scheme (e.g., they will co-invest in startups). Maybe we should be encouraging angel investors more, at least for now. I get the feeling that a lot of kiwis are more the "invent in your garage" type, and VCs don't fund those (nor do Angel investors really). We don't seem to have much for people like that.

Hans

[Peter]

A lot of our technology/knowledge research and spending is in the primary industries. There are actually some potentially very good things being developed for diverse purposes in biotech, A2 Milk and Botryzen come to mind. Also a few in the health field, for example Bliss. But they often seem to struggle to make progress through lack of capital, they don't seem to be viewed very favourably by investors.

[hans]