I’m grateful that it’s cold and pissing down outside all day today.

Because if it wasn’t I’d leave the house rather than embark on what I have to do now.

Up until less than a decade ago the end-of-season paperwork for a farm involved gathering together invoices, statements and anything else related to the business and sending it off to the accountants. Many were the mordantly funny stories told by rural accountants of the “shoebox delivery”.

That last one still happens but now there’s also these tasks:

  1. Council Survey for Ratings purpose.
    Why? I know their calculation system and the only factor is whether it’s a farm, lifestyle block or urban zoning – which they would already know since it relies on their approval which would be on file.
  2. NZ Statistics
    I always get an email telling me why I’ve been picked. I’m sure the real reason is that I’m one of the schmucks who fills this crap in.
  3. NZ Dairy Base.
    I get a lovely little report each year telling me where I sit in this world compared to others, which tells me nothing about how to do better, which is not surprising because it involves some combination of higher production, higher prices and lower costs, which I already know. I think I also get a monthly magazine, which I never remove from the plastic as I dump it into the bin.
  4. The Overseer Report.
    Great name. I already described the joy of being forced to input data into this baby. The fabulous Overseer computer model that supposedly produces an accurate calculation of my nitrogen runoffs. I once asked if they would like to dunk some measuring devices into the various streams above and below the farm to check against the model, but they assured me this had been done on trial farms.
  5. The Environmental Plan.
    This one’s all new for 2022. And they have kindly built it as an online system. There have been several webinars explaining how to work it, including a lot of mouse-driven work to mark out … various things on the land. I missed all but one, which I fell asleep in after 15 minutes.
  6. The Nitrogen Plan
    Another new one for 2022. It was supposed to be done back in August but IT problems (web pages – who knew they were so tough) slipped it to October 31. My fert company has at least developed it’s own portal for this stuff, which makes it easier – except it’s still not working even after I’ve detailed the maize crop N usage (which is excluded from the overall measurement)

I need hardly say that me voting for a National/ACT government in 2023 will change none of this. In fact it will likely increase, either with more groups demanding such things or more detail, or both.

My accountants, as well as all the pricks listed above, should be grateful that I’m not a client like Bernard Black.