The New Zealand economy would be in a parlous state were it not for the thriving dairy industry. It has taken many decades for our milk farmers to reach this level of global success, millions upon millions of dollars invested in research and new product development, and a vast amount of capital.
The industry has also managed this without in large part being subsidised overtly or covertly, as are virtually all its competitors, and in a world where access to markets has ranged from difficult to even more difficult.
It may further be drawn from its success that our "best and brightest" people can and do find useful and valuable careers on the farm, in the milking shed, in the milk factory, and selling to the world's markets.
But the most significant lesson from the industry's success may well be lost on most New Zealanders, including those who make the political decisions. That lesson is that New Zealand must earn its way in the world principally by exporting most of the food it produces.
Farming leaders rightly complain that their sector's contribution to the economy is too often overlooked, that the focus on industrial and technological progress will not produce for decades anything like the level of export income delivered by our primary producers, and that policies should still in large part reflect this reality. They have a fair point.
Last week's Budget will quite possibly be remembered in history for no other reason than the almost complete absence of reference to primary production.
True, the Government has made many small adjustments here and there, especially in areas of business-related taxation, that benefit farmers just as they benefit all small businesses. But its largest single farming-related "benefit" was no more than a promise: it would be prepared to invest up to $400 million on commercial terms with private investors and local councils in "fast-tracked" irrigation schemes, principally for further dairy expansion, and the Budget set aside $35 million over five years for councils to develop feasibility studies to get such schemes to a prospectus-ready stage.
It was hardly an earth-shattering commitment and was, perhaps understandably, barely noticed by most outside the industry.
What has been noticed is the promise by the Labour Party that if it becomes the government in November it will require agriculture to become part of the emissions trading scheme in 2013, at least two years earlier than the Government's deadline.
The industry has responded with hostility, because it will add more costs to an extremely cost-sensitive sector even though on a cents-per-kilogram basis the actual impost will be small. There has been political reaction suggesting local dairy products would increase in price but that has not been an opinion supported in public by Fonterra.
The company, which effectively controls local sales, has become very price-conscious because of the impact high world prices are having in local supermarkets, with cheese and butter now beyond many pockets and milk voluntarily price-controlled for the moment.
Much may depend on the election outcome, for there will be pressure on a Labour-led administration to intervene to hold or subsidise local dairy product prices.
Labour has already committed itself to raising the minimum wage, which would be just one more cost increase for primary producers who have no price control or subsidy available, and who continue to face a range of ever-increasing and unavoidable costs - beginning with fuel and other business inputs, competition for labour, and the need to reduce their debt.
Debt repayment is likely to be where a considerable amount of the higher payouts dairy farmers receive will be going, as they should.
The prospect for farmers of prices holding or possibly increasing in the face of world demand must be considered good, but no sensible producer will budget other than conservatively when the industry has no effective control over receipts.
Dairy farmers have also to face up to several domestic problems, not the least of which is the impact of their industry on the environment. Improvements have been and continue to be made, both voluntarily and as a consequence of prosecution, but there continue to be lapses and progress overall is slow in returning rivers, streams and lakes to an acceptable state.
The sector cannot delay paying its share of the cost of environmental recovery at a time when it is enjoying record prices for milk fat. There might be a case for deferring necessary work if prices were low, but there is no justification today.
