The recent Mystery Creek Field Days were accompanied by the usual announcements that New Zealand is the world's leading pastoral economy.
Given that the average annual return on capital over many years has been around 1%-2% for sheep and beef farms, and often no more that 2%-3% for dairying, these pastoral farms can hardly be described as successful businesses.
They survive because of the massive appreciation in land values, which benefits owners when they exit the industry and sell their properties.
Despite many farmers working extremely hard improving their properties, and believing that they are simply the temporary holders of the land borrowed from their children, most are really little different from land speculators.
They are supported by banks, extremely eager to lend money on the cast-iron expectation that land values will continue to escalate rather than that the business may show a reasonable profit.
Figures from Massey University banking studies show that in the past 10 years, total rural indebtedness to banks has risen from $12 billion to $45 billion, which is certainly not connected to a massive increase in farm profitability in that period.
Apart from repeated claims that the pastoral sector is the backbone of the New Zealand economy, which has been in relative decline for 50 years, it does not make sense that we are so dependent on an industry which is largely based on non-productive, continually inflating land values.
There is little evidence that the industry and Government are ready to take the hard decisions to improve the situation.
Few would disagree with Craig Norgate's view that people clearly understand what needs to happen and it's only industry politics that are holding it up.
As meat works continue to close, the failure of the meat industry to rationalise its operations is seriously damaging our economy.
But all we get is a very public spat between the leaders of Silver Fern Farms and ANZCO, about who runs the best company.
On a recent mission to China led by Trade Minister Tim Groser, nine companies from the highly competitive New Zealand mussel industry agreed to co-operate on marketing green-lipped mussels in that country.
Conversely, one meat company, Silver Fern Farms, talked about their proposed strategy of targeting niche products and going it alone.
The situation in the wool industry is even worse.
The export value of wool has been declining for years, with the current $500 million being one third down on the $750 million a decade ago.
Recently, talks to set up a single farmer co-operative have collapsed, partly because the players involved had different strategies.
However, Minister of Agriculture David Carter has claimed a new industry body will be set up in an attempt to unify the industry.
Research has ceased since farmers voted last year not to pay a levy for wool research.
One bright spot is the relative success of Merino New Zealand, which has developed strong interactions with manufacturers and consumers.
Unfortunately, fine wools only make up 15% of the total value of the wool clip.
As a result of the monopoly held by the old New Zealand Dairy Board and the extreme dominance of Fonterra, which processes 90% of our milk supply, the dairy industry has avoided much of the frequently pointless competition which has dogged the meat and wool sectors.
However, despite very optimistic forecasts of prices as high as $8 per kg of milk solids, it is expected prices will remain very volatile.
With dairy farm sales at a virtual standstill and the sector carrying a debt of $30 billion, prospects are probably average at best.
Despite a proliferation of new small dairy companies, most are largely involved with commodities and are therefore directly competing with Fonterra's main business, rather than developing new added-value products.
A recent KPMG agribusiness report has confirmed our long-held advantage as the world's lowest-cost producer of pastoral products is fast becoming a myth.
John Lancashire is an immediate past president of the New Zealand Institute of Agricultural and Horticultural Science and a former director of Grasslands Research in Palmerston North.