Ringing the alarm bells loudly

Be warned. The boffins, bureaucrats and levy groups have been working behind the scenes on your behalf, on your dollar, in a bid that is wasting millions on pills and potions that we don’t need, all the while decrying “we won’t hit you with a methane tax”. Vax or tax, it’s the same thing.

Compulsory use of mitigation tools is arriving. In fact, Beef+Lamb NZ have been offshore, shaking hands with heavily subsidised feedlot farming sectors that are about to mandate the use of chemical feed additives in a bid to chase headlines and methane rainbows. Stealth and subterfuge. The frog in the kettle is glowing rosy red.

“All ‘suitable’ British cattle will be given methane-reducing chemical Bovaer or Bovaer-like products by law by 2030, under controversial Government plans”.

“A Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) document that details the plan to mandate the use of ‘methane-suppressing feed products’ in English cattle has sparked concern on social media — due to claims the substance can leach into milk, causing health problems.”

Surely this is a world away from our free-range, pasture-raised “Taste Pure Nature” brand? Are we that crazy that we are prepared to throw farmers under the bus of alarmist-modelled, catastrophic global warming chasing compulsion, demanding farmers round up all their livestock and wrestle a bolus down their gullet at a cost of over $1 billion/ year. Good luck with that. Here’s hoping ACC levies will cover broken arms and dislocated shoulders.

Having raised bulls to two and half years of age many moons ago, there is no way I would have ever brought them in to vaccinate them or try and ram a bolus down their neck.

It seems strange that the Greens haven’t cottoned on that any such interference with ruminant methane is a trojan horse towards more intensive, housed, feedlot farming.

Companies like Silver Fern Farms and Fonterra state they have to force farmers to take action over the 4 millionths of a degree a year warming they may be responsible for one day because their customers are demanding it. Really?

Meanwhile their more courageous competitors exporting stock and milk into those same offshore markets say “bollocks”. There is no such demand. Consumers want naturally- raised, safe food and value for money and an assurance somewhere in the background that we have emissions covered off. We have. Job done. Or haven’t the growing numbers of ‘comms’ staff at our two biggest exporters got onto that yet? We suggest this ‘consumer call’ is just another ruse to cut prices paid to us, impose differential pricing and ramp up corporate control.

If only we had put more time into promoting our world-leading, natural food-based emissions profile, our plummeting natural emissions trajectory, and our lowinput, low-impact food production systems instead of sending our sector straight to the gallows. The billion dollars feeding a bloated methane scientific sector and their admin could be better spent extolling our advantages.

Farmers are an integral part of the carbon cycle, sequestering CO2 growing grass and crops, they are already net zero. The minor sniff of ruminant methane from our stock continues to fall and has done for 20 years.

Our message to farmers is – “wake up and take action”. It is not too late. Support the Methane Science Accord and Groundswell demanding accountability and common sense from the corporate cocktail club and your MP. Get out of the Paris Accord. We never belonged there, anyway.

Ring the alarm bells before they ban the bell.

Owen Jennings is former National President of Federated Farmers and ACT MP. He’s also a member of Methane Science Accord and Groundswell.