The vast majority of our current dairy export is basic milk powder which is pumped into the manufactured food industry.
Any reduction in price via a cheaper synthetic milk product and our dairy exports would crash.
The technology and investment into synthetic milk and meat research means it’s just a matter of time before that cost and carbon footprint comes plummeting down.
I’m not ruling out a dairy industry altogether. Organic farming that feeds the 5million here plus our obligations as Whānau to the wider pacific but not the 40million others!
We don’t need mass investment into synthetics ourselves, we just need to stop selling Dairy to everyone else!
Why should kiwis who already put up with corporate farmers polluting our water and increasing global warming gasses ALSO pay global prices for their product?
How outrageous is it that on top of all this we allow a legal monopoly in the form of Fonterra?
The water pollution, climate crises worsening gases AND we pay the same global price corporate Farmers can get on a global market of 40million others while putting up with a monopoly?
As a monopolistic collective, isn’t Fonterra more socialist than Jacinda?
Farming Capitalists are selfish socialists.
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we pay the same global price corporate Farmers can get on a global market
Surely that is a govt-regulation thing? (Serious question.)
Individual farmers did not make that decision did they?
Why can’t the govt simply bring in a law to ensure that all food products grown and produced in AO/ NZ are available to the people at a minimum profit margin compared with buyers overseas?
We should be paying less for a block of cheese produced here than is being paid in Aus or anywhere else. Instead we are paying around twice as much!!!
But it is not individual farmers who are to blame for that. You think they are happy about paying twice as much as their Aussie cuzzies for cheese that they themselves worked for? …put in the hard yards, the long hours, the sloshing out cowsheds at 4.00 am etc… to then pay twice as much as boys across the ditch???
WHY would they be happy about that?? Why would they be OK about that??
It’s a debt thing. Increases to private debt spreads inequality. Increases in public debt spreads public good.
The Fonterra essential monopoly was legislated in to being by Labour of course.
Obviously a history buff youngster.. Of course, as an expert on the sublect, you will know that cooperatives were in the mix since the early part of the 20th century, and had reached the point in the 1990’s where there were less than half a dozen, that were the result of mergers that had been occurring for decades.. The merger that created Fonterra was no more than the logical conclusion to that process.. To attampt to pin all of that on a labour government speaks volumes about just how dishonest the tory commentariat is prepared to be in order to avoid taking responsibility for their own greed, and lack of social conscience… And their adherents are just the dupes who would jump off that cliff because a tory told them it was going to make them rich… That makes them about as credible as those who would happily indulge in threatening, and intimidatory behavior rather than just deal with the reality they created themselves.. Fucking spoiled, self entitled brats!!! If you don’t like the idea that your own people can’t afford to eat your product, then change your own behavior.. The real rorting of the population has been going on for decades, and was driven largely by tory governments throughout the 20th century..Typical though that they save their whinging for when a labour govt has been elected to fix the chronic imbalances introduced as a result of their addiction to easy money, and their utter lack of foresight as to where that would inevitably lead.. You helped create this ridiculous and untenable situation farm boys.. Start showing some loyalty to your countrymen and women, and regulate your own company…
So yeah it was Labour.
Cheers
Only because the milk co operatives at the time and the majority of farmers wanted it.
Plus the commerce commision approved it.
Try and sound less defensive guys it’s embarrassing.
Labour specifically legislated the Fonterra monopoly creating high domestic milk product prices that others are complaining about, own it.
Before that of course, Labour also introduced neoliberalism here and hence the wonderful low wage economy and other business monopoly and duopoly behaviors rife in NZ.
Own it.
In fact here is an article from the RNZ/Newsroom/news hub propaganda chain articulating exactly that: duopoly and monopoly behavior from Rogernomics is the cause of high food prices here.
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/money/2021/07/the-sky-high-cost-of-living-in-new-zealand-why-is-our-food-so-expensive-when-we-produce-enough-to-feed-40-million.html
Successive governments have been playing at being King Midas, where everything they touch has to be turned into ‘gold’ (or equivalent figures in a budget). Including our food. Including our water. Including our land.
I say to them, Give us back our food!
Give us back our water!
Give us back our land!
How outrageous is it that on top of all this we allow a legal monopoly in the form of Fonterra?
Yes. But the needed change has to come from the govt. They make the laws.
corporate farmers polluting our water
Forestry does that too. It is happening in plain site, yet for some reason people screen it out, pretend it isn’t happening. One example is the mass of old logs and rubbish that clog the rivers after every flood, increasing the amount of land that’s flooded, and then the same logging debris piles up on our beaches – staggering amounts of this, ruining the beaches, clogging the river mouths.
There are other ways too, that forestry has become toxic to the waterways as well as to the land. (And again, much of it is in foreign ownership – a travesty for AO/ NZ.)
“sight” (sigh)
Kheala 100%. But it’s worse, the logging mess we’re seeing is from forest harvest trash. The new forest trend is for carbon forests, where pines are planted as a massive welfare scheme for international corporates to harvest carbon while not changing polluting behaviour overseas. Once these corporates take all the availabkle carbon credits they will ‘write off their assets’, by abandoning the pine forests to grow old and die. THEN we will see some real environmental degradation, whole forests of senescent trees falling down, going up in massive fire storms, or dieing and blocking every river in the country. There will be no come back on the people who made the mess because they are just taking advantage of NZs climate change legislation that actively promotes this behaviour to get rid of our evil farming systems.
Due to the nature of the ETS legislation, these carbon forests CANNOT be taken back out of forest without paying the huge carbon liabilities that are held on the land title. Essentially these carbon forests are effectively removed from NZ just as well a sif they had been scooped up and dropped into a mountain overseas. THis si the worst pieve of short sighted stupidity NZ has ever done, and is still actively encouraged by this Govt and fools like James Shaw.
By contrast the IPCC said do not commit to any climate change legislation that will impact world food supply. So what does NZ do? Commits to massive legislative change to convert our food production into inalienable masses of fire-hazard environmental vandalism monocultural forests that prevent biodiversity and will be legislatively-enforced unharvestable, in the name of climate change. The stupidity is so profound it make me despair.
Yes. I’m fighting off despair ..
And, some people are locked into the madness of the contrived “carbon credits” ruse. When they want to diversify, they are prevented from doing so.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/358314/iwi-says-unfair-land-deal-locks-them-into-forestry
Ngāti Koata said a recent decision by the Nelson City Council to cut some of its forestry operations has highlighted a long-standing concern among iwi about being locked into onerous land deals.
The iwi – one of eight iwi in Te Tau Ihu (top of the South Island), said it had to keep planting and harvesting pine trees, or pay millions of dollars in lost carbon credits.
Here is Keith Woodford’s article on this, for anyone who may not have seen it already:
https://www.interest.co.nz/rural-news/100134/keith-woodford-says-crippling-carbon-liabilities-attaching-land-carbon-farmed-will
Keith Woodford says crippling carbon liabilities attaching to land that is carbon farmed will be all that is left after foreign investors harvest the first cycle gains
Keith has been writing on this subject for some time, a voice of reason in a sea of madness. This line alone should be a wake up call for NZ;
“But in the case of carbon forestry, the foreign owner can effectively capture in one rotation the economic benefits in perpetuity.”
But far too many well meaning people are far to fixated on “DO SOMETHING NOW!!!” for climate change mitigation that they don’t take time to see the proposed solution is far worse than the problem. Unfortunately this has been theme in many areas of the current and previous Govts of our country.
fixated on “DO SOMETHING NOW!!!”
Yes. And part of that may be to do with the urban// rural divide. In cities, everything happens fast – Walk in anywhere, any day, any time… Instant food, instant whatever you want. In rural areas you have to wait until something grows or the season changes. You understand that things take time.
I think the three year parliamentary terms are unhelpful for the same reason. Those making the laws, whatever party, feel they have to rush them through in the short time they have, and so they don’t take the necessary time to think through consequences and effects, potential for harm, or to consider alternatives. Or even to do thorough research, as with the forest planting – emissions trading scheme.
Yes, Kheala, Forestry is quite toxic for the guys who work in it and get smashed or killed doing so too. It’s also quite toxic for the whanau deprived of sons brothers and dads. Growing up without a dad is quite toxic for kids, like the prognosis isn’t all that positive but hey – they’re all expendable and replaceable by other economic units. Shame about logs wrecking waterways but best practice requires expenditure did you know ?
It is not just the logs that contribute to increased flooding. When they clear-fell the hillsides as they do in pine forestry, half the hillside often washes down as well – all the topsoil washes down into the river below – more flooding, and more degraded land.
The hillsides look so ugly and barren and scarred after the clear-felling is done, desert-like. The soil is pretty much wrecked. Rotting stumps, broken logs and heaps of debris on the flats. Previously there was native bush, with all birds and wildlife, on those same hills.
The new imitation meat/dairy foods combined with legislation restricting traditional farming will enable a series of massive corporates to dominate the world food supply, and by the nature of monocropping with it’s associated negative impacts on soil, biodiversity, and Carbon sequestration will inevitably have worse environmental outcomes than the current farming systems. There will also inevitably be far higher emissions and pollution on farm level due to the nature of arable farming (ploughing, monoculture, herbicide, soluble fertiliser, soil compaction, heavy machinery etc etc etc), not to mention transportation to labs to produce this new franken-food, which may not be nutritious or even safe to eat long term.
Be careful what you wish for, allowing evil corporates to totally dominate the global food supply is not in the interests of the common person.
In my gut I did not agree with the program that pretend meat would take over I I did not know much about its background .Your arguments is a very sound reasoning why it is not the winner promoted by the Greens.
Anyone who thinks that farmers are just chugging around on tractors for the heck of it, think about this:
Canterbury farmers say they’re at breaking point. A recent Ministry of Health report presented to MPs showed suicide rates were up 17 percent in rural areas compared to a drop of 7 percent in cities and towns.
Droughts, floods, earthquakes, farm debt, M bovis, looming water quality reforms and climate change legislation have Canterbury farmers feeling under the pump.
Ashburton farmer and Federated Farmers’ board member, Chris Allen, said nothing brought home just how many farmers were battling depression than a funeral.
“You could talk to many farmers in Mid-Canterbury and they would know in the last 10 years of more than one person that’s committed suicide, they know probably more than two, they might know three, four or five.” – More at this link . That was from Nov 2019; four months later we were hit by Covid.
More on forestry harm:
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/103690904/its-banned-in-other-countries-but-new-zealand-is-using-more-toxic-methyl-bromide-than-ever
From that link:
Methyl bromide, an ozone depleting toxic gas harmful to humans, is banned in many countries but New Zealand is using more than ever.
Every few minutes, a logging truck rumbles through the gates at the Port of Tauranga. More logs arrive by train.
The wharves at Mount Maunganui are covered in huge stacks – there are so many logs they’ve had to store them in a yard nearby.
All this wood – 5.5 million tonnes of timber went through the port last year – has brought jobs and industry to the area. It’s also brought methyl bromide. Loads of it.
The gas is an extremely effective killer of all organisms and is used in small quantities to fumigate imported fruit, vegetables and other products. But by far the biggest users are timber exporters. More at the link.
———-
https://www.mpi.govt.nz/dmsdocument/14869/
“After a serious exposure that causes lung or nervous system-related problems, permanent brain or
nerve damage can result.” – That is just one of many harmful effects.
The govt is trying to phase it out, apparently, and “recapture” is now required at all ports (since 2020). But this extremely toxic substance, harmful to environment and to the atmosphere, is still being used and has been used with complete abandon for many years: “The majority of the 525 tonnes of gas used in New Zealand for 2014 was in association with forest products ” – from the MPI link.
And when you’re watching your kids play rugby at Blake Park you can smell the stuff drifting over you.
And the coal dust blowing over the residents.
Interesting thing about us exporting food.
A few years ago I asked the people at Countdown why if New Zealand makes cheese why is it so expensive to buy it here?
They told me that their prices are linked to the price of dairy products overseas. If dairy prices are high on the international market they are also high on our domestic market.
About two years later the arse fell out of dairy and international prices plummeted.
The price for cheese at Countdown did not drop.
I contacted Countdown with a copy of their earlier reply and I said if prices were down on the international market why had they not fallen here?
They replied that there is a time lag between the fall in prices internationally and cheaper prices on our domestic market.
That was a about three years ago so this time lag is a fucking good one.
Read the latest copy of ‘North and South’ for a useful article on the role of supermarkets and the cost of living in New Zealand.
The price of milk/cheese is just fucking theft…..so that grubby farmers can ponce about on $300,000 tractors
Joe blogs farmer has zero control of the cheese price.
Yeah we could buy mainland cheese cheaper in Darwin even concerting the exchange rate.
In NZ Frontera is a virtual monopoly (thanks Labour) and the supermarkets are a duopoly (thanks Labour).
New Zealand is the poster child for a small population rorted by lack of market regulation on the big boys, (monopoly and duopoly behavior allowed in essentials like building, food) over regulation on everyone else (eg expensive HACCP plans for small producers as a barrier to new food producers entering the market) so a low wage economy with consumers paying more than they should with little choice.
Farmers get reamed by the supermarkets as suppliers too.
And it is very noticeable in the fruit and veggies. The govt claims to care about Climate Change. How is at all helpful for the climate that bags of garlic, eg, are flown in from China to sell in supermarkets at a much cheaper price than that grown in a nearby township?
It is bad for the environment, bad for children’s health (the imports are low quality), bad for small time local growers. …Applies equally to any fruit and vegs from the US or anywhere else.
The Chinese garlic mightn’t be that safe – it’s bleached – I buy it – it’s cheap – but will revert to growing my own.
No reason why every state house in New Zealand shouldn’t be planted out with one or two fruit trees. No reason at all.
Do you think farmers get more when prices go up locally . Well they do not the price is set at the start of the year and then the businesses sell it at the best price they can get for it . If they make a big profit the shareholders do well if they make a lose the price they pay next year is less . The average farmer would do a 80 hr week and have little time to pounce around as you say and if they are driving a $300000 tractor it would be owned by the bank. If it was not for this government stopping experienced operators coming here they would not be on the tractor.
If you want to see what ‘fucking theft’ really looks like in farmers look at the case of cheesemaker Biddy Fraser-Davies, and the massive compliance cost structures imposed on small producers in NZ. The model that wiped out her business is the same one wiping out all small farms in NZ, and exactly the kind of massively expensive over-regulation and compliance costs that the Groundswell event was about. When I was farming sheep I worked out my return was about 18% of the supermarket price (before costs), dairy farmers get even lower %.
The reason country people get so angry is becasue many of us are already doing the right thing, but in the near future we will still have to pay some clipboard warrior $150/hr to write up a big report that will ultimately say we are doing everything right, that will be $40k thanks. See you next year for the same again. I call that ‘fucking theft’, but it works for Labour because it produces another huge layer of their much loved expensive buraeucracy to hide behind and as a bonus kick farmers again on the way.
Most wouldn’t even know what a Kulak is.
Farmers?… wasn’t that a trading company down Queen St way in Auckland?
The demonisation of farmers on TDB is so disingenuous it beggars belief. I hope all farmers globally just erect a great big middle finger and all the urban socialists end up eating their delicious “Soylent Green” (which is the only truly “green” food).
It is complete nonsense to suggest farmers are rich because “ They ponce about on $300,000 tractors.”
The money would be borrowed from the bank against the equity held in the farm.
The vehicles are necessary to reach the required levels of productivity to remain in business.
The horse and plough won’t cut it.
Having purchased the vehicle however does not guarantee profitability so like most business owners the farmer is taking a risk.Unlike a bureaucrat sitting at a desk on an attractive salary.
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