And wider.

The fertiliser industry is very large by New Zealand standards – about $2 billion now. It is also totally deregulated. Anyone can put up their shingle, call themselves an expert, and sell anything as a fertiliser or a fertiliser substitute.

And they are - Mr Morris of Agrissentials sells ground basalt rock and Mr Ewan Campbell (Probitas) sells ‘marine deposits’.

We have now all the ingredients required for an explosion in snake oil merchants and pseudo-science - after all a 1% stake in market share represents an income of about $20 million annually and rocks and marine mud carry a good margin when you pretend they are fertilisers.

So, here is my prediction: over the next few years we will see more muck and mystery products on the market or those already present will gather a larger market share.

That's New Zealand, where ag is a major part of the economy, though it's a small economy. In the US the numbers are larger but the syndrome is the same.

To make matters worse from the farmer’s perspective, the reforms since 1985 have left the pastoral sector bereft of technical consultants specialising in the important area of soil fertility and fertilisers.

There was a time when every farmer had access to an independent MAF Farm Advisor. And they were, until the bureaucratic rot set in, seen as the arbiters of good and bad. But today who does the farmer turn to for independent advice?

And it is broader that just the fertiliser industry. The impartial (i.e. independent of the sale of the product) advice on pasture cultivars and animal health remedies is similarly bedevilled. What to do?

This brings me to my hope: because fertiliser prices have and will continue to increase, I hope farmers will be rational and objective in their fertiliser practices.

Farming by fertiliser-recipe must go. No longer can farmers continue to do what they or their neighbour did last year. Pastures need 16 nutrients, animals a further two, and they must all be present at the appropriate optimal levels. And the only way to know that this is the case is to test – soil tests, plant tests and animal tests, regularly and routinely.

The cost of doing so is minimal in relation to the cost of the fertiliser investment. The costs of not doing so could be enormous.

The problem is real, but there is no such thing as an "independent advisor". This is merely code for government bureaucrat, who always have their own agendas.

For a time there were farm advisors that were better than independent, they were totally dependent. They were hired and paid by the farmers themselves. These agents were often local heroes, fellows who had a record of farming success over time, a reputation for results and the respect of their peers. They had passed the test over a lifetime of trials and in their senior years they worked to teach what they knew to youngsters and lesser farmers.

But, they were not scholars, not scientists and were replaced by university trained outsiders who were independent of the farmers but dependent on the universities, who were funded by government. They had more access to novel materials and methods, but less experience, and no skin in the game. Serious growers had more confidence in ag consultants. They may have ties to vendors of materials but they still lived and died on their reputations, and so were more accountable and more successful.

The best approach really is to get hard data. Do the tests. Lab work is cheaper than in the past and more readily available. It takes knowledge to interpret the tests, to integrate and understand the implications of the various tests of soil, forage and flesh, and so there are still opportunities for consultants, and still opportunities for grifters and charlatans. Just as in everything else. A second opinion may be required, doctor.

The more growers contribute to a public record of their actions and results the better that they and their peers will be able to do. In the information age the primary limit is in gathering and recording the information. If government bureaucrats really want to help they need to step back from their pretensions to expertise and do something useful, help get the data online. Once the data is publicly available some of the muck and mystery will be cleared up.