NZ/India trade: Nice guys finish last.
The ongoing publicity about the NZ/India trade deal focuses on the immigration aspect, but rather less on the sensitivity of India to imports of New Zealand dairy produce. Although India has scads of people and the numbers are limited, there is the opportunity for Indians to move here for work. New Zealand has scads of milk but dairy products are not allowed. The reason stated, is that imports from this country might 'damage the Indian dairy industry'. Nothing though about the displacement of Kiwis in our labour market.
How quickly we forget about the millions New Zealand contributed to the Indian dairy industry via the Colombo Plan. Noteworthy among Indians studying here was Dr Verghese Kurien, who went home and founded the modern Indian cooperative dairy industry. Arriving here with an engineering qualification, but no dairying experience, he was so taken with our cooperative model that once back home, he founded the Bombay Milk Scheme. This project saw huge income and production increases for Indian farmers. Indeed, Kurien's New Zealand-acquired skills were so central to Indian dairy development, that his birthday is celebrated as National Milk Day.
Kurien, by all accounts, enjoyed his time at Massey and the Dairy Research Institute and it is said developed a taste for Red Band draft at various student watering holes around Palmerston North. In my New Zealand Dairy Board travels, I never visited India, but colleagues reported that Verghese Kurien always made them welcome in Bombay. It was Board policy to develop relationships in countries that had potential for trade, even if there was no immediate need.
At various times milk demand in India outstripped supply and we were one of two countries (the other being the US), they looked to for food aid in the form of skimmilk powder. I expect the actual figure is buried somewhere in the archives, but my recollection is that over time our gifts amounted to several thousand tons.
As the most common milch animal in India is the buffalo, which produces milk with over double the milkfat content of cow's milk, our skim was used to standardise the fat of consumer milk using a process called 'toning'.
Seems though, that our well-intentioned largesse all those decades ago, has not helped our trade. Did our negotiators mention this in the talks? More to the point: Did they even know about it?