Wednesday, 07 May 2025 12:55

Inconvenient truth

Written by The Hound

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OPINION: You would've missed this one if you rely on mainstream media for your news, but your old mate reckons credit should go where credit's due: Emissions by dairy cattle decreased by 1.6% according to the latest NZ Greenhouse Gas Inventory report.

It shows that between 2022 and 2023, total emissions from agriculture decreased 2.2% which included a 1.6% drop in dairy cattle emissions due to a fall in dairy cow numbers.

This is part of a trend that has seen methane emissions from dairy cattle decrease by 4.11% since 2017.

DairyNZ statistics show a 3.4% decrease in cow numbers - from 4.84 million in the 2021/22 season to 4.67 million in the 2022/23 season.

Average milk production per cow however increased over this same period by 1.8%, up to 393kgMS from 386kgMS.

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