ABSTRACT
Any analysis of planning for the rural sector in New Zealand must take account of six aspects of the nationt experience that together tnake it unique - the overwhelming importance of pastoral farming in the agricultural economy; the long-term reliance on rural exports to generate foreign exchange; the countryt colonial experience; the nature o f the political pressure groups generated by the dominance of rural production; the existence of a distinctive attitude to land and its use by Maori people; and the rapid, perhaps unprecedented, transformation of the New Zealand economic environment since 1984. New Zealand farmers and agricultural scientists have spent a
century and a half developing a system of pastoral farming that is among the most efficient in the world. Its efficiency depends on one family being able to manage a large area of land and large numbers of livestock. This is achieved by close subdivision using stock-proof fences and sophisticated methods of pasture management that are highly dependent on liberal applications of superphosphate. It also depends on intensive but selective mechanization, especially in the dairy industry. In the last decade other systems of rural production have begun to rival the importance of some of the pastoral industries. Horticulture has progressed rapidly and is no w dominant in some regions and forestry based on Pinus radiota has continued its steady growth, as well as expanding into new regions. Exports based on the pastoral industries - dairy products, meat,
and wool, together with by-products - continue to eam more than 50% of New Zealandt foreign exchange. This proportion
has decreased from almost 90% in the last two decades, and without major changes to the regulation of international trade in agricultural products is likely to decrease further in relative importance. Traditionally, New Zealand was a supplier of pastoral products in bulk to the British market. This too has changed. More diverse and more highly processed products are supplied to a much wider range of markets (Lewthwaite 1980), but the transformation took much longer to achieve than might have been expected and is still evolving. The adventitious roots of colonialism had penetrated deeper than expected. New Zealand’s colonial association with the UK was eco
nomically advantageous to both parties. Britain obtained reliable supplies o f basic food and industrial products in bulk. New Zealand, through a simple but efficient agricultural system, was able to support the rest of its society at one o f the highest and most evenly distributed standards of living in the World (Clark 1949). The association had its detrimental aspects from New Zealand’s point of view. Economic complacency was deep-rooted, local industrial innovation for export stagnated in the first half of the 20th century, trade with other nations was stifled, and commercial associations developed that did not act in New Zealand’s interest when circumstances changed. For example, much of the meat Processing industry was controlled by British capital and its reluctance to maintain investment and to diversify markets and products as rapidly as the dairy industry cannot be divorced from this relationship. Moreover, planning itself was strongly influenced by the British experience. Planning teachers and professionals and the model of planning were imported from Britain and indigenous developments were constrained. An economy structured in this way, and towards these ends, had
its inevitable social and political ramifications. In comparison to its numbers, the rural farm lobby was as strong as anywhere in the world. Its strength partly explains the absence of a specific country political party for most of this century. No party could neglect pastoral farming. The primacy of agriculture in the economy had other more subtle influences on the unstated ethic of the nation. An intense commitment to pastoral farming became ac cepted in the community at large and even by scientists who had been intimately and successfully involved in its evolution. Rural county councils were almost always dominated by landowning farmers, because the system of local govemment was modelled on the original British system of separating town from country - munidpality from county.
