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The fertiliser industry is very large by our NZ standards – about $2b now. It is also totally deregulated. Anyone can put up his/her shingle, call himself an expert, and sell anything as a fertiliser or a fertiliser substitute. And they are - Mr Morris of Agrissentials sells ground basalt rock and Mr Ewan Campbell (Probitas) sells ‘marine deposits’.

 

We have now all the ingredients required for an explosion in snake oil merchants and pseudo-science -after all a 1% stake in market share represents an income of about $20m annually and rocks and marine mud carry a good margin when you pretend they are fertilisers.

 

So here is my prediction: over the next few years we will see more muck and mystery products on the market or those already present will gather a larger market share. And the drums are already beating. The Southern Rural Life magazine (August 6 2008) carries article from both Mainland Minerals and Southern Minerals – both purveyors of pseudo-science – saying in effect – come to us our products are more cost-effective than mainstream fertilisers. Be wary Mr Farmer, be very wary.

 

To make matters worse from the farmers perspective, the reforms since 1985 have left the pastoral sector bereft of technical consultants specialising in the important area of soil fertility and fertilisers. There was a time when every farmer had access to an independent MAF Farm Advisor. And they were, until the bureaucratic rot set in, seen as the arbiters of good and bad. But today who does the farmer turn to for independent advice?

 

And it is broader that just the fertiliser industry. The impartial (ie independent of the sale of the product) advice on pasture cultivars and animal health remedies is similarly bedevilled. What to do?  

 

This brings me to my hope: Because fertiliser prices have and will continue to increase, I hope farmers will become more rational and objective in their fertiliser practices. Farming by fertiliser-recipe must go. No longer can farmers continue to do what they or their neighbour did last year. Pastures need 16 nutrients, animals a further 2, and they must all be present at the appropriate optimal levels. And the only way to know that this is the case is to test – soil tests, plant tests and animal tests, regularly and routinely. The cost of doing so is minimal in relation to the cost of the fertiliser investment. The costs of not doing so could be enormous.