by Bernard Hickey
It was like a neutron bomb going off in the heart of New Zealand's economic strategy.
The Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, Jan Wright, released a must-read report this week on land use and nutrient pollution.
It directly addressed the huge ramp up in cow numbers over the last decade and how that was affecting our waterways.
Using models from Motu and NIWA, the report then looked ahead to the further growth in cow numbers forecast by the government as it tries to double agricultural exports by 2025.
The results were deeply unsettling.
"It is almost inevitable that without significantly more intervention, we will continue to see an on-going deterioration in water quality in many catchments across the country, particularly in Canterbury and Southland," Wright wrote.
In a very even handed way she then went through the sources of extra nitrogen and phosphorous being released into our waterways, which then go on to cause algal blooms and slimy rivers that damage insects, fish and birdlife.
Wright acknowledged a lot of the good work that has been done by the dairy industry and Governments since the advent of the Clean Streams Accord in 2003, and more recently the Land and Water Forum.
But her conclusion is that by 2020 the dairy boom will have converted an extra 650,000 hectares of land to pasture upon which cows are dumping increasing amounts of urine and dung - the main culprit in nitrogen leaching. No amount of fencing off of waterways and stopping shed effluent from going down the drain will stop this accumulation of nitrates in our water tables and water ways.
"Even with best practice mitigation, the large-scale conversion of more land to dairy farming will generally result in more degraded fresh water," Wright said.
Think about this for a moment.
No matter how many waterways are fenced off and how much effluent is spread on paddocks, the problem gets worse.
Even 100% compliance with Fonterra's Sustainable Dairying Accord signed this year does not solve the problem.
This is saying New Zealanders must accept the permanent poisoning of our rivers if we are to grow our economy through dairy exports, which is our main strategy at the moment.
It is a Faustian bargain with four legs, a tail and whole lot of cud chewing.
It says New Zealanders must accept that dairy farmers are going to privatise the profits of permanently damaging our rivers while the losses are socialised.
Jan Wright's report has hit the biggest nerve in New Zealand's economic and political nervous system.
Interestingly, Fonterra understands this in a much deeper and more visceral way than dairy farmers and their representatives. Just two weeks ago Chief Executive Theo Spierings told an audience of executives in Auckland that if Fonterra failed to protect New Zealand's waterways it had no future.
He said New Zealand was 10 years behind its European rivals on green issues. "If we want to grow, and we want to grow in New Zealand, we cannot grow in the way we grew in the last 10 years because we will hit the wall in terms of environment and sustainability, so we have to get our act together," he said.
It's time now for farmers and the Government to engage in a serious debate about how to unravel this Faustian bargain and think about how we can use our water and sun and land to meet the insatiable demand for protein from emerging Asia without ruining our rivers and lakes.
It may involve challenging our deeply held ideas about cows roaming free on pastures.
It may involve big sheds, concrete pads and troughs.
But maybe a concrete floor is better than hitting a slimy, brown brick wall.
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This article was first published in the Herald on Sunday. It is used here with permission.
64 Comments
New Zealand needs to move up the quality rather than quantity ladder. Some of that means doing agriculture smarter (see comment) and it means looking at what else we can do as a country to pay our way in the world. That means making our urban areas work for us.
We need to be looking at investing in urban businesses not housing. That means solving the housing affordability conundrum. It means looking at our cities honestly and addressing those things that make them unattractive for business and workers. Things such as congestion and poor tertiary education.
This comes back to goverance and making our public insitutions that affect our economy do their jobs properly.
And/or move up the value chain. When a can of infant formula is sold in Beijing the NZ farmer who sold the raw milk to Fonterra would be lucky to have received 10% of the sale price of that can. Our economic future in the agricultural sector lies more in specialising in product development, processing and marketing and less in growing. BTW these are all urban activities so totally agree on making our urban areas work for us.
I have commented over at Fridays Top Ten on the fake crisis of food security that politicians, financiers and Fed Farmers are using an excuse to justify the agricutural sector's big resource grab.
Thanks but there really are two overlapping strategic options: the first is to continue with commodity products but ensure that as much of the proceeds as possible stay in NZ and the second is to concentrate on higher-value products only (with the proceeds still staying in NZ). In the former it is possible, as Fonterra, is doing now to outsource production of raw material to other countries but for us to keep the profits from value-adding and marketing.
Either option or a combination of both combined with taxes on externailties (pollution and water take) would see an easing of the rate of intensification. But we wouldn't have to sacrifice economic performance. And I would love to see those taxes fed straight back to Lincoln, Massey and the CRI's to fund research into smarter, low-input farming systems.
Here's a crazy aspirational goal: dairy farmers should make more money from their shareholding in a dairy company than their profit from supplying raw milk.
crazy aspirational goal: dairy farmers should make more money from their shareholding in a dairy company than their profit from supplying raw milk. Kerry Food comes to mind: http://markets.ft.com/research/Markets/Tearsheets/Financials?s=KRZ:ISE Be careful what you wish for ;-) Not all farmers are shareholders in companies they supply.
fund research into smarter, low-input farming systems. That is already happening. However as farmers are reasonably free to decide how to farm, there are many different opinions of what 'low-input' actually means.
Well, farming operations have a few hefty inputs such as fertiliser, animal health, pest control and energy costs. Of course research has been going on in these areas to identify alternatives but, as long as they are seen as slightly eccentric, there will be slow take-up of the ideas. I am trying to avoid terms like "organic" or "holistic" but this report is suggesting we need to shift to thinking about profitability over productivity which will require a change in thinking.
profitability over productivity which will require a change in thinking. I couldn't agree more! And not just from farmers - bankers and advisors too. The banning of imported feed such as PKE would have cause to make many start to consider profitability over productivity. Alas, that is unlikely to happen in the near future.
Brendon - I'm going to hassle you. Urban businesses? Selling what to whom, for how long, using what, and with what will they pay? (which goods/services will they be producing?)
We have the least 'governance' ever, and the greatest control by corporates, ever, on the planet. Just look at our Govt this last few hand-outs-to-the-rich.
It's not 'govermnance' which hit the wall - it was growth -based economics. Failure to be underwritten. Come on.
PDK in simple terms all I am saying is that the next generation shouldn't be thinking about doing more dairy. They should be thinking about doing something else.
I think sometimes you are seduced into this whole growth thing. When a lot of what we are talking about is change.
Recently I was in Wellington and an engineer friend took me to West Wind -50 or so wind turbines and one of the most productive wind farms in the world. He described how he could make all the ingrediants locally -steel included without using fossil fuel and only use a few months energy from the resulting wind farm.
Maybe the next generation should be doing something along those lines.
Who needs a bigger economy anyway seeing that we dont own much of it? Focus should be on increasing ownership by citizens even if that means a reduction in size of the economy. We actually would benefit both economically and environmentally from owning our country.
It's not all that kosher to the cows either, as given the choice they would not eat that grass for a very long time after effluent is spread on it. They only eat it because they don't, our farming practices are getting out of control, and the rivers are just a symptom of the sickness we are allowing to prevail, and this government is actually promoting.
Dairy conversions have ruined the southern Mackenzie and are working their way north. The water table is polluted, as are open ponds and streams and rivers. The place stinks of cow shit. Flies and mosquitoes have become a problem, attracted by the ocean of cow shit and the lush irrigation-fed pasture that replaced iconic golden tussock, long-since ploughed under.
The good news is Fonterra and farmers continue to get richer; the bad news is everyone else suffers for it. Those dairy earnings vanish into overseas tax havens -- after all, why should the dairy industry have to pay its fair share of taxes? Tax is for other people. Meanwhile, milk costs more than Coca Cola.
Friends in Hawaii complained to me recently about their "ridiculously high cost of living." Everything is imported in their "remote island chain, so everything costs too much." For instance, they pay a whopping US$4/NZ$4.9 per gallon for gas. A whole US$4 per gallon. Milk in Hawaii costs less than half as much as it does in NZ. Electricity, telecommunications, and just about every other thing costs far less than the NZ equivalent. That's with a total population of a hair under 1.4 million.
No wonder John Key is counting down the days to his Hawaiian retirement.
Malarkey. Affluent German friends just arrived here for their 3 month annual break repeating their perennial complaint about NZ cost of living which worsens with every visit.. Comparing it to the most successful economy in Europe since WW2, they are in no doubt that our abundance of resources are being mis managed at best and at worst manipulated to ensure big business (banks) are given preferential treatment. They fail to understand the tolerance/indifference of Kiwis with this situation. Don't get them started on the state of our roading infrastructure and vehicle fleet.
Speaking of Coca Cola, you would be forgiven for comparing the way dairy farming is consuming everything with the way Coca Cola has ridden roughshod over comminities in the rush to grow sugar
This govt won't listen and it will be difficult to wind back, as we have got to the point where margins are so small that we have to have many more cows to provide similar returns to years ago.
And of course, that hoary old chestnut, allowing the precious land to be sold to foreigners, thus necessitating even more of it being used in this ghastly manner
I really hope the Chinese govt are successful in convincing their new mums to breastfeed their kids, and I hope they support them to do for as much as twelve months, then we might just have to relook at this whole filthy industry
raegun, as we have got to the point where margins are so small that we have to have many more cows to provide similar returns to years ago Have you had a chance to read Pita Alexanders article in the Straight Furrow:
Remember the Rule of 72 which says that if your compound increase in your farm working expenses is 5.1percent, which is what it is in many cases at the farm gate, then this means that your farm working expenses will double every 14years.
Your personal drawings will probably double over that 14 year period as well. This is scary stuff, but the Rule of 72 is cast iron.
http://straightfurrow.realviewtechnologies.com/?iid=84124#folio=6
Medium term lowish debt, low cost, low inputs, and farming for profitability not production is the only way to go.
Dairy farming isn't the problem. Growth for growths sake is.
We currently sharemilk 250 cows on 84 ha with all replacements on and no wintering off. Presumably with this aforementioned target of doubling exports there is an expectation that farms like this will sift to a system of buying in large quantities of feed and increase cow numbers or sell up to the neighbour who will.
According to Dairynz figures what were doing is about as efficient and long term robust as it currently gets, so why the need for growth?
The easiest way to stop dairying expansion is to increase the profitability of sheep, beef and cropping. End of story.
Dairy farming is the problem when it's occurring in places completely unsuited to it, such as the semi-arid Mackenzie high country. That's obvious when you have to engineer Pharonic scale irrigation systems just to prevent your pasture blowing away in the breeze, and the "soil" almost entirely consists of extremely porous glacial till, and surface water instantly vanishes into the local water table.
Not disingenuous pdk - quite happy to send you the results of the year long testing programme ES did on our wetland last year. Their staff did took the samples, not us, and when I queried the difference in readings where below the farm cowshed track read 30, and the duck/wildlife pond read 2000 I was told 'ducks and birdlife'.
Your apology to me, which I won't hold my breath for, will be accepted in the spirit in which it is given.
The main problem is dairy farmers aren't paying the full economic cost of discharging effluent. The simplist solution is create a market for trading discharge rights along the lines of carbon pricing schemes.
Calculate the maximum amount of effluent a given soil type can sustainably absorb, farmers earn credits by decreasing their discharges below this level whist having to buy credits if they exceed the limits. Over time the limit can be lowered and/or the excess charges increased to a point where it is uneconomic to discharge more than the environment can sustainably absord.
The problem with trading schemes it it allows the 'bad' practices to exist. Take the Lake Taupo situation. Landowners there can trade nitrogen units. These 'credits' have been bought by dairy farmers to convert land to dairy. Other stock classes can also 'buy' credits. Without these 'credits' the land probably would not be converted to dairy. So is it really a win for the environment? I don't believe so.
Farmers in some areas do have limits imposed on them according to soil type. ES has a website that can be accessed that tells farmers if effluent can be applied due to soil moisture on various soil types/areas. We have a soil moisture probe on farm that reads soil moisture every 30mins. This data is then used to determine what if any effluent can be applied. These records are required to be sent in to ES every three months. If you can't apply effluent it is sent to/held in the effluent holding pond. The placement of effluent irrigators (pods) is done according to gps lines. This is becoming more common now on farms along with many other technological advances. The cost of building these sytems runs in to six figures for individual farmers. Then there is the maintenance and running costs of these systems.
Nutrients can take a long time to show up in water degradation so it is not entirely the current generation of farmers who are to blame. That doesn't mean that they should continue to farm 'as they always have'.
Lake Taupo: The average age of water entering the lake is about 45 years old in some catchments with some as old as 180 years (ie. some of the water fell as rain as early as 1830 !).
• 45 year old water pre‐dates most of the intensification of agriculture around Lake Taupo . In other words, the worst is yet to reach the lake https://www.nzif.org.nz/Folder?Action=View%20File&Folder_id=231&File=Roger%20MacGibbon%20Farming%20under%20the%20Nitrogen%20cap.pdfJust another reason to curtail most immigration.
If we really want our own citizens to prosper, it makes little sense to share the benefits with a lot of low contributing new arrivals. We should at the least be extremely selective. It is a big enough ask to accommodate our own returnees from Australia and UK.
Permanent poisoning? No. The water cycle ensures that freshwater comes into the system all the time. But i suppose a bit of sensationalism is all in a day's work for journo's.
High nutrient in waterways inhibits Didymo growth.
Don't mention the pollution we all spread when we flush our toilets. It contains pathogens and parasites of humans. There was a time when info. on that was available from councils......
Not what I have been lead to believe. Nitrates and P enter the system and slowly leach into the ground water, once contaminated it can take years and years to clean the water. A feed lot above me and this is just one, there are three of them, has 70 tonnes of dung a day being dropped on porous soils and an enormous amount of urine as well, enough to pollute 70 million M3 of water I am told.
This is a huge problem. As a farmer its taken me much longer than it should have to realise the size of the problem and the huge difficulty we are going to have cleaning it up.
Personally I think polluters should be held responsible, I don't I pollute, but I know damn well that the farmers above me do and and they know it, I also have prove that the Regional council has turned a blind eye to the problem.
If its a problem in my little back water then you can guarantee its a much bigger problem in other areas. If we as farmers don't move to take control of this situation, then there will be draconian laws passed in the future to control how we farm.
The Feds are hopelessly tied to Nationals growth at all cost policy and are failing their members.
SimonP "This is not the fault of any one industry alone nor the fault of a single generation. Industrial wastes and town sewage have, until relatively recently, been significant sources of water pollutants and continue to be in some places." Quote from Commissioners overview in the Report
What some seem to either not understand or choose to ignore is that this report was written soley for discussion on land use changes. It did not consider all polluters of water ways and their individual impacts, nor did it consider the effect of Regional Councils policies which in some areas now require a consent to convert from sheep to dairy farming. Nor the latest State of Environment Report
The Chair of Environment Southland is questioning what information was included in coming to the decisions the report does regarding Southland. http://www.stuff.co.nz/southland-times/news/9433563/Call-to-report-missing-data One of the problems is that these reports take so long to write that by the time they are published RC policies and or science have rendered parts of the report inaccurate. After all it is based on assumptions.
I wonder what State of the Environment report the lady from Southland is referring to? Ministry for the Environment does a national one - last one being 2007. One of the big problems with SoE reporting in NZ is that Regional and District Councils who collate much of the data do not standardise on any data collection and/or reporting methods. This failure in terms of NZs environmental management is well recognised the world over. We really do not know just how bad/good our environmental health is .. nor how it has been trending over recent decades.
Shocking really in comparison to all our OECD counterparts.
Anyway, the Nat Party campaigned in both of the last two elections to transfer the responsibility for SoE reporting to the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment (PCE) - given its independence from the Executive. Environmentalists were generally happy with this. Instead however on recently announcing their policy - they have decided instead to give the responsibility to the Chief Statistician and the DG of Environment (i.e. the CEO for the Ministry for the Environment). Effectively, they (the Govt) are going to keep the responsibility for reporting (or not reporting) on the State of our Environment within Ministerial control.
Are we surprised given the intention to fund irrigation and intensification projects thru the public purse .. of course not.
Given the denial of the end of growth, denial of peak oil, denial of AGW, selling out of our intelectual property and many rights via the TPP, cosying up to the christian loonies in order to remain in power, why is pork barrel politics as surprise?
However just listen to WP and the rest...
regards
Interesting Kate, you would think better alignment and collaboration would make sense. Maybe this is what Theo Spearings is alluding too when he claims, with the support from Jan Wright, that we are ten years behind Europe in environmental sustainability. I would appreciate it if someone could expand on this statement, so I can be better informed.
Meantime I don't know what went into the motu and enviro modelling, but there is effort to reduce excessive N loss from pasture fed cow urine, http://www.dairynz.co.nz/news/pageid/2145881036
The biggest finding from the study however was that feeding mixed pastures had a major impact on reducing urinary N losses and this was achieved with no loss in milk production.
For info on European initiatives/policy - the EU's Environment DG website is the place to go. Theo was being kind - we're far more than 10 years behind Europe. But then Europe has spent alot in subsidies to achieve its environmental objectives.
Fascinating news article on Stuff today re the US under-reporting of methane emissions - and I note from this article that everything we are doing policy wise is set to exacerbate our emissions profile. So this intensification is not just a water quality issue.
Kate Environment Southland does what it calls 'State of the Environment' reporting. Quite separate from the Environment Commissioner. http://www.es.govt.nz/environment/monitoring-and-reporting/state-of-the-environment/
Well yes all the regional councils do something they call environmental reporting. But as I understand it there are no mandated 'rules' or quality control systems regards how things are measured, what things are measured (when, where and how often) and subsequently reported. So one council's "good" might be another's "fair" and another's "poor" in terms of water quality stats. The Commissioner for the Environment does not do what is NZ's State of the Environment Report. That has been done in the past by the Ministry for the Environment (the department which reports to the Minister for the Environment). This has seen political interference in the reporting - for example in the 2007 SoE report, the then Clark Govt pulled an entire chapter from the report which was titled 'Land use intensification'. It was subsequently discovered under an OIA request - and eventually released in full.
Hence, the National Party said it would take the politics out of our environmental reporting by giving the job to the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment - who is responsible to the full Parliament, not to the executive government. But surprise, surprise, when the Nats got into Govt they changed their minds. Instead - two government departments (Stats and Environment) will be responsible in the future.
I hear what you are saying Kate, however ES reports the actual test data and trends (improving, not improving etc) So the subjective, good/fair ratings are not applicable in this instance. This is the report the Chair of ES was referring to. The science data was available for the team Jan Wright had, but they chose to ignore it. Whether or not it was because it showed some Southland waterways are actually improving and therefore could throw the modelling results in to question, we will never know.
If Jan Wright's team ignored the data - then it was likely the data was considered either unreliable or unusable for their purposes (i.e. not measuring what they were measuring). Hard to say as I haven't looked at it. But the point I would make is the 'science' behind the PCE report will be robust and thorough. I think the PCE report modelled future scenarios if intensification proceeded at the current pace. In other words, the objective was not to determine whether there had been improvement from a past period to a current period (which is what you are saying has been the case in Southland). I believe it was modelling a potential future for the waterways (in other words from present to future state). But again, this is just what I've picked up in reading media releases - not the actual report.
Jan Wright has not given ES the data set that it used in the report, despite it being requested.. Given that conversions had slowed markedly in 2011, prior to the report date, the team must have been using data older than that so it can hardly be considered 'present'.
One of the problems with modelling reports - they are based on assumptions at the end of the day and are usually out of date at time of publication. Jan Wright says she hopes people find it 'useful'. The problem in NZ is the MSM - they take it as gospel and portray it as such.
Carpark conversions are obviously the answer. Carparking buildings in downtown Auckland are now at a substantial discount to the equivalent stock units in the Waikato. Each car space will easily house two to three cows in feed lots. If you take a 300-400 car-bay downtown Auckland carpark you could easily fit 1000 cows. Running the numbers it just makes sense. I am surprised that it has not happened already. Innovation is the key to our farming future. Auckland City is ripe for such a change of use and a rapid expansion in dairying. Meanwhile Wilson Parking, essentially China owned. Obviously they have taken the long view and are now in the prime position to move rapidly into carpark-dairying in a big way.
Could be 40 years for nitrates to cycle through my area (Ellesmere): future pollution is engineered into our current land use.
Of wider concern is the remarkable and ongoing marginalisation of science by vested interests (for want of a better term) Anyone heard from the Chief Scientists hand-picked by John Key?
The Chief Scientist made quite clear remarks about Climate Change.
I seem to remember Bill English being in denial, and we've done nothing. Meantime Joyce does a Goebbels; only funding that which might 'make money'.
You wonder why they are doing it - they have kids, don't they? Surely someone has explained to them that they can't isolate themselves by wealth?
Hey Powerdown
I am writing an article for goodreturns about the dangers of giving finacial advice based on assumed continual growth of the economy. I note you seem to have been active in this area for some time and would appreciate you running your eye over my article and noting any possible improvements.
I couldn't hunt down your email address but if you wan't to flick me an emal that I can reply to my email address is andrewmcinnesinsurance@gmail.com
Cheers
But maybe a concrete floor is better than hitting a slimy, brown brick wall. Bernard - brown slime is didymo - and you will have to talk to your fisho friends about that. Jan Wright did refer to brown slime in her report but referenced it as didymo.
Stop being mischevious by using it in an article relating to dairying - one has nothing to do with the other.
Landcorp has converted significant area of pines to pasture, on relatively porus undeveloped soils, mainly for the benefit of a few Auckland based investors. They have also secured water rights to irrigate these porus soils. In the context of this article the irony couldn't be more brilliant.
Wonder how Europe is more environmentally sustainable? Would stalling our cows open the door for introduction of GE crops? I'm guessing they'd be here by lunchtime, not to mention a ramping up of PK imports.
I suppose the tax payer on both accounts.
Fortunately Landcorp is not all about profit, it's contributing to farm research and training young workers to be employed on large scale foreign owned corporate farms, which are 'here to stay' according to the trained lawyer who now manages the operation. So developing forestry blocks into farms for corporates is not all in vain?
So tenants in our own land was the plan all along.
I have emailed John Key several times asking at what point he considers we have to stop all this foreign ownership in order that we should not becomes tenants in our own land, as he himself said we shouldn't.
No-one should be surprised that I have had no reply
- Project manage the construction of infrastructure for new farms
- Varied, fast-paced role
- Taupo-based position within a dynamic project team
The Role: Reports to the Senior Business Manager – Development and works within the team undertaking an exciting land development project at the Wairakei Pastoral complex where, initially, 10,000 ha of pine forest is being converted into 23 new dairy farms.
We are looking for a highly practical and organised individual with relevant experience to project manage the construction of infrastructure for the new farms. Initially, this includes three dairy sheds and nine houses, and eventually a further 10 sheds and 31 houses, irrigation and other facilities. The role involves liaising with building contractors and monitoring project progress and costs. You will also coordinate contractors providing associated services, ensuring their work is fit for purpose and timely.
........ https://www.qjumpers.co.nz/job-seeker/job-detail/11019/#.UpLJeeL-WUY .....
With no housing provided for this position and the farm’s proximity to Taupo, it may suit someone who wishes to combine a rural job with urban living.
Landcorp is committed to providing a safe and drug free workplace and the successful applicant will be required to pass a drug test.
Only those with the right to work in New Zealand need apply. To submit your covering letter and CV, please apply below to: Gayl Gaukrodger, Manager – Recruitment & Training. Enquiries to Ross Shepherd, Senior Business Manager – Development, 027 450 8845
Applications close(d): 5 pm, Thursday, 10 October 2013
At least part of the driver of pines-to-pasture is the ETS as it applied to forests. The Selwyyn Plantation Board, down here in Canterbury around the mid to late 2000's - took a cold hard look at the three irritants of downland plantations:
- neighbours who cannot understand trees as a crop and who go all NIMBY around thinning and harvest times
- The aforesaid ETS and its fumbled forestry foobar
- The occasional windstorm ('68, '75) which can fairly much reduce a stand to firewood
And it moved, over the space of three short years and:
- mulched every single downland plantation including some 10 year plus crops
- root-raked and rotary hoed the lot, buried the stones, and sowed it down in grass
- sold the lot for a massive CG, for dairying
- retreated to the uplands, where none of the irritants mentioned above, apply.
Verily, the botched Forestry ETS contributed more than a little to the spread of dairy....
Being of advanced years, I less than fondly recall the small, old dairy factories of yore. I was working in one of my four careers in my Tonka Toy phase (machine operator: dozers, scrapers, graders, trucks, quarries), The local waterways were the recipient of numerous direct discharges - whey etc.
I recall standing in a roadside ditch downstream from the old Gummies Bush factory, laying in a culvert extension with a 1.5m diameter pipe on a T-junction. Ditch was less than a kilometre from the Aparima Estuary by Riverton - now a noted wetland, and was chocka with decayed whey and other goodies - fully half a metre of smelly ooze.
I finished the pipe lay, took the truck straight back to the County yard, marched into the office and informed our pay clerk that I was taking the rest of the afternoon off to clean up. And that I did not expect my pay to be docked a single second. She wrinkled her nose, I went home to a long series of baths.
Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose
The problem with no longer grass fed is what's the CO2 impact of trough feeding? extra fossil fuel use? So all you appear to be offering is an alternative poisioning? More palm kernel imports? Damage to NZ's clean and green image?
Not surprising the Govn's looking to our farm output, its selling out via TPP everything else on the wild hope we will have a [bigger] market.
Great, just great.
PS and Labour's strategy is?
regards
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