Don't get me wrong, I've nothing against dairy farmers. In fact, I like them so much I married one!
But what is wrong with our milk harvesting brothers? For years they've suffered in stolid silence as they get abused, maligned and vilified just for trying to make an honest dollar and keeping the economy afloat.
You'd think they'd be national heroes like Spitfire pilots in the Battle of Britain. No way, Jose! Amid endless accusations of environmental terrorism, the expression 'dirty dairying' has passed into the national vocabulary and a once proud industry has accepted the label of pariahs of the planet without a murmur
It's not my job to tell cow cockies how to put on cups, but they need to fight fire with fire. The label 'stinking cities' springs to mind.
The biggest danger facing planet Earth is not cows pumping out nitrogen, it is cars pumping out carbon; nearly all that carbon comes from cities.
NZ dairy farmers have spent some $2 billion over the last decade to reduce nitrates and phosphates. But the cities have spent zilch on reducing carbon.
There are only 1014 electric cars registered in NZ; that's the strength of their commitment. An electric car costs the same to register as a 7L V8-powered vehicle. That tells you that, unlike the rural sector, there is no resolve, desire or urgency among city slickers for action on global warming. How hypocritical is that?
Add in urban sprawl, more motorways, struggling public transport and the tag 'stinky cities' is a mild reproach to urbanites sitting in traffic lashing out at the humble milk producer. Dairy farmers know there is a problem and are seeking solutions. But it's business as usual on Queen Street and Lambton Quay.
Politicians and journalists are happy to beat up the dairy industry. They scream 'dirty dairying' every time they see a paddock that isn't Eden Park. Around 14,000 dairy farmers are too small a constituency to threaten parliamentary majorities or sales of newspapers and we farmers put up with this nonsense.
Tourism is now said to be our major foreign exchange earner. Passenger jets are responsible for 3% of all fossil fuel emissions and high altitude carbon dioxide is extra lethal. (A Boeing 747 used to burn 40 tonnes of fuel to fly from London to Auckland.) But you don't hear of 'toxic tourism' and no one demands that holiday makers paddle themselves to Fiji and back in a wooden waka. More hypocrisy.
The Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment produces an annual report which always refers to the damage caused by dairying. And it also focuses on widespread and increasing urban pollution. But the media, the Greens and other politicians all turn aside from the big problems and focus on the rural sector – because they don't want to upset the readers and voters who live in Auckland, Christchurch and Wellington.
We country folk have spent decades trying to buddy up to our urban cousins, and so we should. Sadly, the romance has died. Now it's time for tough love.
For every picture of a cow standing in a river there should be a dozen shots of traffic jams in Auckland filling the skies with poison. The cow picture should be captioned "We're doing something about it. How about you?"
When reports appear on the state of the environment, the farming media should give front-page coverage to urban transgressions -- heavy metals in harbours, trashed city streams and leaking landfills.
Don't get me wrong, I like city people. They provide useful services like flag referendums. But they are killing the planet and blaming us. It's time they were outed and forced to mend their ways.
