NZ Dairy Industry Flashpoint Approaching

I have been arguing for some time that the NZ Dairy industry is a sunset industry the millisecond a synthetic calcium casing is found.

We have been led to believe that we are some fancy Dairy producer when the reality is we are a basic bitch exporter of basic bitch milk powder that is used as ingredient filler for the heavily manufactured food industry, 75% of our export is milk powder and the millisecond those big manufacturing industries can remove the cost of growing the cow to make the milk, our economy will risk an enormous implosion.

The NZ Dairy Industry Flashpoint is approaching…

Scientists find new way to make cow’s milk substitute, could have radical effect on New Zealand’s dairy industry

Scientists have found a new way to make a substitute for cow’s milk that could have a radical effect on the dairy industry.

It’s called precision fermentation – creating cow protein in the lab – and could replace dairy ingredients, which make up a significant proportion of New Zealand’s export market.

“Precision fermentation of dairy proteins which creates a very easy pathway for creating proteins without using dairy cows,” University of Otago Professor Hugh Campbell explained.

“If this area takes off, it improves New Zealand’s economic prospects because a whole lot of things happen that are high value, but it does shrink our livestock footprint on the land.”

Food technologist Anna Benny has worked in food science for decades and has found herself living on a dairy farm in South Otago, so she has a unique perspective on the future of the dairy industry.

“My concerns are we are right in the firing line if this technology can take off,” she said.

Benny said New Zealand was vulnerable because three-quarters of our dairy exports could be replaced.

“The types of products that precision fermentation will produce are ingredients and powders. The types of products that we specialise in.”

…the Daily Powder Industry has managed to get environmental rules sidelined and water pollution limits eroded as they take on huge debt from the Banks to afford dairy intensification when that industry is a sunset industry.

Why on earth would the heavy manufactured food industry who peddle salt, sugar and fat laden food give a shit that the filler ingredient is organic when they want only profit maximisation?

We have built all economic support into a product that had a technological limit.

Cows will soon be Taxis in an uber world.

There is zero recognition of this risk because kiwis have been conned into believing that NZ Milk and Butter is the clever product we are exporting when the milk powder reality is far more demeaning.

The Cows will come home to roost.

The Biggest Lie in NZ Politics is that NZ Dairy is the cleanest and greenest in the world when the reality is that it’s a cherry picked nonsense that leaves out pollution so NZ Dairy can get to the numbers to pretend to be clean and green.

Russel Norman’s take down of this Dairy propaganda on The AM Show recently was just ruthless…

“NZ is the biggest seller of a simple commodity called dried milk powder, the cheapest of the cheap, and if you look at what is happening in food production around the world they are looking for more environmentally sound food products.

They are looking for higher value products.

We’ve gone down the pathway of the lowest quality commodity you can produce in the world.

NZ is mid range in terms of its environmental cost per kilogram of milk solids, there is nothing special about it, and we do feed a small number of people compared to the billions on the planet and the economics is very clear that you can be just as profitable if you pull back on the stock rate, pull back on the amount of fertiliser and actually produce a higher product.

Organics is in fact doing incredibly well globally, so why don’t we become a producer of dairy rather than the producer of the cheapest commodity on the planet which results in us trashing our water ways and being big climate producers, that’s a better pathway isn’t it?

…he’s so right!

We always ignore that the 40million number is based on us selling milk powder as a base line ingredient filler for the manufactured food industry. The PR spin pretends it’s wholesome NZ cheese and milk and meat those 40million are eating when the truth is the vast majority of what we export is basic bitch milk powder used as a filler ingredient!

The Climate Crisis was some event we feared at the end of the century, what we are seeing is an unleashing of heat events well beyond what we feared.

There is just no plan to adapt to this new reality when it should be the driving force to begin immediate and radical adaptation for what is coming.

We have no comprehension of what is coming and we are simply not prepared for the age of consequences.

Watching National, ACT and Corporate Farmers use their economic and political muscle to avoid responsibility for what comes next can only be resolved by civil unrest and a campaign of civil disobedience against those interests.

Just consider how the Corporate Farming Lobby have managed to avoid any tax on their pollution since mid 2004!

They have pushed and pushed and pushed it off for 20 years!

National have already promised ANOTHER 5 year extension which will mean the agricultural industry have managed to stop any tax on their pollution for quarter of a century!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Claiming that NZs emissions mean nothing in comparison to China and India isn’t a justification to do nothing, it’s an acknowledgement that radical adaptation is the only move left because those Goliath economies have already doomed us to a dangerous climate change future!

The Left must force a bargain with Farmers and Growers for strategically essential reasons.

They are going to feed us when the famine comes.

A recent report on food security found NZ had incredibly low food security because it was so open market driven and refused to subsidise farmers.

Which is where we on the Left must drive the debate.

We should absolutely consider subsidising food grown by NZ farmers and horticulturalists and our seafood and meat and dairy that generates a 15% price reduction for all NZ produce consumed here.

For growers we need to protect our most productive growing land for food by giving those producers tax breaks to ensure they can continue to feed NZers first.

Rebuilding a direct link between the harvest grown here, the people who grow it and a grateful local market who enjoy the product WITH a 15% price reduction.

Climate change will kill global free market supply chains, we are locked into hyper-regionalism. We need to build new economic structures, subsidising NZ kai for the domestic market would lock in certainty for producers while strengthening food security for the population.

We have to find new ways of working together to ensure we can survive what’s coming.

The old greeds, the old hates and the old exploitations will no longer hold the system together if that system is melting in real time.

Super-rich warned of ‘pitchforks and torches’ unless they tackle inequality

Global elite told at London’s Savoy hotel of real risk of ‘civil disruption’ if more is not done to help struggling millions

This is the age of consequences.

They won’t be pleasant.

 

 

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