Butter wouldn’t melt: Nicola Willis and the politics of dairy denial
Why should New Zealanders pay international prices for butter while subsidising carbon-heavy agribusiness?
Not surprisingly, former Fonterra senior manager Nicola Willis says we should blame supermarkets—not Fonterra—for high butter prices.
Fonterra was founded in 2001 as a state-backed national firm for the dairy industry.
Butter prices are also influenced by government decisions to regulate — or fail to regulate — monopolies or near monopolies. Given that over 80% of New Zealand’s raw milk is collected and processed by Fonterra, this also gives the company a dominant position in the butter market. Next comes the duopoly of Foodstuffs and Woolworths operating the supermarkets. For consumers, getting a block of yellow grease feels like stepping from one monopolistic trap into another.
As Finance Minister, Willis suggests we should welcome high commodity prices because they are good for the New Zealand economy. But good for whom, exactly? As I explained in a previous post, prior to the imposition of neoliberalism, there were mechanisms within the New Zealand economy that allowed the benefits to be more widely shared with the community.
