Why do we have a state owned dairy farmer?

Stuff reports:

Labour’s primary industries spokesman Damien O’Connor said the Government was “asleep at the wheel” over Solid Energy, and could not afford to ignore the warning signs over state-owned Landcorp’s “incredibly ambitious” dairy farm conversion.

“While there are obvious differences in the two cases, the parallels of a highly ambitious project getting into trouble due to a tumbling commodity price must raise the alert level.”

Solid Energy suffered following a continuing slide in the price of coal on the international market, which O’Connor likened to the under-pressure dairy industry as the milk price collapsed.

The solution is not for Ministers to dictate to Landcorp what to do with their land.

The solution is for Landcorp to sell the land, and let private investors take the risk.

We don’t need a state owned dairy farm.

The state should only own land needed for conservation purposes or other needs such as treaty settlements. If we’re using the land for dairy cows, we don’t need to own it.