After all, as recently as 1980 SMP's were still an accepted part of Federated Farmers policy. However, it is very doubtful that either policy prescription will greatly improve the lot of New Zealand's farmers in the long term. The real looming crisis will probably emerge from the inability of government policies to greatly affect the changing structural relations within agriculture. No matter what efforts at cost reduction and price support are implemented, the general decline in the ability of farmers to command any sizeable slice of the food dollar will remain. What is emerging is a deep division between the fortunes of farm producers on the one hand and the processing and agri-business industries on the other.
Farmers are powerless to oppose continued reduction of commodity returns by downstream industries.
Likewise, even if a continuing 'dry' economic agenda does provide cheaper labour for processing industries and if reduced tariffs do supply cheaper imports for farm input industries, it is still unlikely that these agri- businesses will feel in any way obliged to pass savings on to the farmer. Herein lies the giant challenge facing any group purporting to represent the economic interests of farmers. This is mainly because many senior Federated Farmers members hold significant interests and even controlling positions in the agri-business sector. But the status quo is greatly aided by the fundamental ideology of ruralia contra mundum. While farm lobbyists continue to blame urbanites and urban-elected governments for all their woes, it is unlikely that any genuine soul searching about the emerging crisis within the food production sector will take place among the workers in that sector.