Dear NZ Dairy Farmers – let me see if I can get this completely straight…

1. With farmers you’re dealing with a settler mentality of working the land and a righteous sense of hard work and purpose. Its very hard to shift and is aligned with the ‘farmer friendly’ Tory party from the beginning of this colonised nation. All farmland is stolen land from Maori and this is yet another factor in the farmer’s settler mentality that coincides with the Tory worldview; racist and privileged. Green pasture livestock farming is the visible face of colonisation and environmental destruction. All once pristine forest with birdsong, is now stripped bare monocultured paddocks and erosion prone slopes populated with greenhouse gas and nitrogen spewing ruminant animals that are bred for a life of suffering and misery as they are forcefully impregnated (raped) and then have their babies ripped from them for pet food whilst we steal their baby’s milk, and then in turn after their exhausted bodies give out they are mercilessly and thanklessly sent to slaughter, whilst the propaganda machine rolls on telling us its all good for the economy, good for rugby, good for our diets, good for our standing in the world as a leading food producer for the millions now suffering from diabetes, obesity and other Western diseases they never knew before all of this. And, of course, its all good for the pockets of the managerial elites, advertising companies, sports celebrities and Tory politicians propogating this existential nightmare.

   • Bro if there are cows being raped report it.
     Plus, paragraphs.
     It makes an extremist rant that much easier to read.

   • You read like you’ve had a bad day Paul. I take your point about the Farmland once being Maori land, so where do you live then. And I take it the sewerage system is good and the sediments from it haven’t found their way into any water way or the sea. And of course your own lifestyle would be pristine because you would never have used any products that have caused environmental damage. A plastic wrapper maybe or a shirt made in China? You also use the Term Tory suggesting an English background. I’m only suggesting of course. We of course know our labour or left wing politicians would never be capitalists, own businesses or farms and have never eaten meat or used their greed to abuse the environment. About the only thing I do agree with you, is that our farmers actually work for a living unlike the some of the bags of wind who have made a career out of criticising them.

     • Primary industry is the largest export earner New Zealand has. The industry is given tax payer gift after tax payer gift to help it through hard times. If farmers want to threaten that stability then we will knock it over and start again because that’s what we do.

       • what bull farmers farm capital gains its a real estate play

         • What if they do? Primary industry is important to the government. The colonial government chose who to sell land to so they could cut Māori right out of it. There mistake was that they didn’t kill all the maaris.

   • @Paul Judge – Keep writing- and if you don’t currently write, consider starting to. This is no rant, this is passion – who called us ‘The Passionless People’ ? Austin Mitchell ? – and not all that common from a Kiwi bloke; it is in no way negated by your buying shirts made in China, turnips wrapped in plastic, or flushing the lavatory. (Just try and remember to put the toilet seat down post peeing, OK ?)

     That’s what Muldoon used to do, try and negate arguments saying, “How can you stand there saying things like that in such a silly bloody shirt ?” Answer, “Quite easily.”

     Last week someone whinged about a lack of commas, this week it’s a lack of paragraphs – never let them destroy your style – it’s your own.

     • You can read him endlessly at The Standard under his other name if it floats your boat.
       Suggest you might recognize the first post on Open Mike there today, nicely paragraphed :).

     • I’ve never written for The Standard, but here is a paper I co-wrote with Lynley Tulloch on this very urgent topic of dairy farming, animal cruelty and environmental damage. You may find there is reasonably good paragraph construction, since it was peer reviewed. And by the way, thanks for your encouraging words Applewood.
       https://videoeducationjournal.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s40990-018-0021-3

2. we owe them nothing No to any bailout they dig there own hole in the cow shit

3. I am so unsympathetic to farmers-they have been cossetted all along their lives,they all changed to dairy when they saw a quid in it;no matter the cruelty;planting a few riparian sections is not going to absorb the huge amounts of excretions put out by cows…..chinese tell their mothers that breastfeeding is somehow”wrong” so we have a lie at the very beginning of the process-babies being fed cows milk is a very bad way to start your life…more health problems(who knows?…maybe that helps the pharmaceutical industry-who knows hoe far this goes)Anyhow,the farmers here have had many years to change their ways of working-to moan now that Fonterra is collapsing and the Government has told them to clean up their act cannot come at a surprise…don’t play victim….you have land,knowledge ,money…go grow us the vegetables,fibre and soya we need.

   • the market gardeners arent in trouble its dairy who joined casino economics
     iam still pissed nat pissed our power assets away on this lot how much has power gone up

   • there not in a financial position to clean up wankers are going to externalize the cost of pollution and debt and walk away from the mess they have made we need a solution like the nuclear indusrty where each farm pays a bond that if they go broke money is there to a clean up!

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