Take a bow NZ farmers. You're about to save our bacon again, according to the International Monetary Fund and the editorial of the Timaru Herald. IMF delegates have been in the country kicking our economic tyres for their annual review of our progress and prospects and the bad news is it thinks our economy will shrink by 2% this year because of what it calls the Great Recession. But the good news is this is about half the rate of the world's biggest economies. While most western industrialised countries steadily approach hell in their high speed handcarts, the IMF says our export commodity base is getting us through the tough times. Farmers, who two decades ago were told by former Finance Minister Roger Douglas that they were working in a sunset industry, are now flavour of the month. Politicians, economists, business commentators and even farming leaders spent years browbeating them, telling them they were doomed by a vicious downward commodities spiral that meant ever decreasing returns. They needed to add value, diversify, and upskill because no matter how efficient they became, their returns would diminish in a world where food prices would forever be heading down. Farmers aren't stupid. They know they have to be lean and clever because, with the odd exception, they are ruthlessly efficient small businessmen who know how to make a buck. They've had to be great survivors because, unlike their American and European competitors, there is no Government safety net in the form of subsidies. The much-admired high-tech manufacturing economies such as Japan and the United States have ridden the wave of a consumer spending boom and are now on the sick list because there's little money left to spend. Meanwhile NZ's food exporters, unfashionable as they are, are doing the business. Because of them, the IMF believes NZ , as a food producer, is much better placed to weather the storm.No matter what happens, people have to eat. And the biggest emerging economies, including China and India, have huge populations. Our farmers are more than happy to feed them.
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