NZ's handbrake
OPINION: Your old mate gets the sinking feeling that no matter who we vote into power in the hope they will reverse the terminal slide the country is in, there will always be a cohort of naysayers determined to hold us back.
Greenpeace's sustainable agriculture campaigner Gen Toop says even dairy farmers are supporting their campaign against further intensification of dairying.
“Several dairy farmers have contacted us on social media and identified themselves as dairy farmers, and totally agree with our campaign,” said Toop. “We haven’t really had that before, in our work.”
Greenpeace in early May used aerial drone footage of the irrigation pipeline being built for the Simons Pass dairy conversion to launch a petition calling on the government to prohibit all new dairy conversions and further intensification of existing livestock farms.
Toop said the petition was one of their fastest-growing, recently passing 26,000 signatures.
“We are highlighting what’s happening there because obviously the Mackenzie is not cow country. It’s dry, its soils are leaky and its very ecologically sensitive.”
Although neither Greenpeace nor the EDS had been party to the Environment Court appeal giving the Simons Pass development the go-ahead, Greenpeace believes the fight isn’t over.
“Better late than never,” said Toop. “It’s every New Zealander’s right to stand up and try to stop intensive dairying from ruining the Mackenzie and polluting our rivers and lakes.”
Valentine’s claim that he would put only about 5000 dairy cows on the farm “has no standing” as long as the consent for effluent from 15,000 had not been terminated, she said. Nor did he yet have consents for all the planned dairy sheds.
Greenpeace would also oppose freeholding under tenure review, in the belief that without freehold the project would be financially unviable.
A landmark New Zealand trial has confirmed what many farmers have long suspected - that strategic spring nitrogen use not only boosts pasture growth but delivers measurable gains in lamb growth and ewe condition.
It was recently announced that former MP and Southland farmer Eric Roy has stepped down of New Zealand Pork after seven years. Leo Argent talks with Eric about his time at the organisation and what the future may hold.
It's critical that the horticulture sector works together as part of a goal to double the sector’s exports by 2035.
RaboResearch, the research arm of specialist agriculture industry banker Rabobank, sees positives for the Alliance Group in its proposed majority-stake sale to Ireland's Dawn Meats.
The ACT Party's call for a better deal on the Paris Agreement on climate change is being backed by farmer organisations.
A 50% tariff slapped by the US on goods from India last month has opened an opportunity for New Zealand wool carpets exports to North America.