New Zealand farmers and growers are calling for faster, more reliable, affordable access to modern crop‑protection and animal‑health tools. Their livelihoods depend on it.
But the livelihoods of global manufacturers and innovators, the people behind these tools equally depend on this, and their story is one less heard.
Their needs are the same - certainty, choice and cost efficiency in a system that’s becoming harder to navigate by the day.
This article spotlights their lived realities and what that means for New Zealand agriculture and our future economy.
New Zealand has a long history of using global and local R&D collaboration to build a pool of talent, using science and cutting-edge innovation to develop tools to support our primary sector to thrive and succeed.
Science‑driven evolution of an innovative and broad toolkit was a cornerstone of the achievement of New Zealand’s goals for economic resilience, environmental protection, and biosecurity.
Take Lewis Fitch. In 1946, when farmers needed a reliable local source of clostridial vaccines, essential, often multi-strain injections for sheep and cattle, protecting against fatal diseases - he built the Trentham Veterinary Laboratory in Upper Hutt. It’s now a global‑exporting site and Fitch’s legacy lives on in Massey University’s Veterinary Research Fund, backing research from parasite transmission to marine welfare to mental‑health pressures in the vet profession.
Fast forward to 2026 and New Zealand is facing a sharp wave of manufacturing exits — Bayer Crop Science from Hastings after 64 years, McCain’s Hastings plant closing by January 2027, and Heinz Watties cutting production lines nationwide. Major GLP (Good Laboratory Practice) laboratories are also stepping back. This impacts the ability to do R&D trials to a standard accepted by other trusted overseas regulators - another factor driving research offshore.
Globalisation and high local costs play a part but understanding the deeper “why” is critical if we want to prevent more shutdown, more losses and the toll it takes on our people and economy
For R&D teams, sourcing ingredients to make their broad product portfolios now feels like doing a grocery shop where prices climb while your budget shrinks - racing across China, India, Europe, the US and Australia, trying to keep up with shifting suppliers, fluctuating prices, and a small group of manufacturers who control what’s available.
When a gas shortage halts manufacturing production of a key ingredient, Economics 101 kicks in - large buyers clear the shelves, everyone else pays more for less, tariffs and trade tensions turn screws and tighten margins further.
For biological products and vaccines, even a single break in the chain can render them unusable. Tools like near‑shoring, digital systems, and real‑time tracking help reduce the risk — but none of them can eliminate the risk entirely.
For these suppliers to small markets like New Zealand, this isn’t about profit; it’s the unavoidable laws of global supply and demand — we simply feel the shockwaves first and harder.
APHANZ Board member Darryl Stretton, recently returned from China and India and adds:
“What I saw in China and India is that global suppliers are dealing with far more complex, fast moving supply chains and need to pivot quickly. Bigger markets are easier to engage with when those decisions are being made. For New Zealand, mutual recognition isn’t about lowering standards - it’s about reducing friction, so we don’t become too hard to deal with as global product and investment decisions are made offshore.”
Red tape is also biting hard and hitting R&D companies in the pocket – costs which get passed on to end users. Leading global crop‑protection companies invest $3.8 bn in R&D each year — more than New Zealand’s entire national research budget. These companies are directing that investment to countries with regulators who work smarter - shared data, shared risk, shared systems, shared technology.
Now is the time to adopt Mutual Recognition of international assessments - trusted regulator assessments and harmonisation processes. This needs to go beyond agreements on paper. We need a hard‑edged, visible operational plan that involves both regulators - with timelines, deliverables, and fewer assessments for applicants.
This not only saves costs but reduces duplication, freeing up limited regulatory capacity to focus on what really matters — trade risk, environmental risk and market access — instead of re‑doing work already completed and trusted, offshore. It’s a stronger option to priority pathways currently being considered which fall short of global supply chain realities.
Sustainability is also no longer a Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) tagline - it’s operational reality for businesses. Cutting duplicated packaging and harmonising labels with trusted markets reduces manufacturing costs, waste and strengthens supply security. These changes align directly with the Ministry for Regulation’s Agricultural and Horticultural Products Regulatory review recommendations. Yet one year on, the opportunity has not been realised.
APHANZ Board member Sam Higgins comments on the opportunity to adopt Mutual Recognition of assessments:
“The current supply chain pressures show why New Zealand needs to adopt Mutual Recognition of Assessments. When products are already approved by trusted regulators like the EU, we should be able to rely on that work. It reduces risk for New Zealand, avoids duplicated effort, frees ACVM to focus on higher‑value priorities, and delivers faster, lighter and more cost‑effective approvals. In a global disruption, that’s exactly the kind of resilience our sector needs.”
New Zealand is at a crossroads: embrace genuine international assessment recognition or continue relying on a Number 8 wire mentality – making do with what we have. This may have once served us well but with the raft of challenges the primary sector now face and increasing geo-political tensions, this now leaves New Zealand – a small, distant market exposed. By adopting genuine Mutual Recognition of trusted international assessments, we can build a resilient, modern regulatory system that protects continuity of supply for the animal and plant health products our country depends on.
"We may have all come on different ships, but we're in the same boat now."
Dr. Martin Luther King
