Groundswell astroturf has swollen and popped – Winners & Losers

ByMartyn Bradbury

There was a lot less Groundswell than organizers had hoped for.

The anarchy of the Wellington swastika clad protest last week would have scared the bejesus out of conservative rural NZ.

Not wanting to associate with that madness has popped the momentum Groundswell had generated.

There are of course political winners and losers.

Winners

Extinction Rebellion – They turned up to counter protest and reminded the Rural community that if you want to have an argument about the climate, we will turn up in force.

Losers

Taxpayers’ Union – their role in astroturfing the Groundswell movement to sell their anti 3 waters campaign is so obvious you can see the shade of green is almost translucent. When you live with wealth, authenticity of pain is always fake. Their role looks obvious and self serving. They keep trying to light low hanging racist kindling while promising to not let that inferno burn out of control. They are like an arsonist begging for corporations to fund their fireworks display.

At some point that arsonist is going to buy dynamite.

Farmers – They were conned by Key and bullied by the banks into taking on enormous debt to dairy intensify and now feel ganged up on by a new generation of environmental criticism that frightens them. Have had that fear manipulated by racists and antiVaxxers.

Conclusion

The once solid political muscle of the Corporate farming lobby has been over extended during the gold rush years of Key’s pump and dump short term trader term and no longer has the ability to protect their members from long over due environmental protections.

There’s a fascinating piece on the splintering of Farming political muscle in NZ on Newsroom that explains why it’s gone so feral and Trumpian…

Divided they fall: NZ’s complex farming future

The wave of farmer protests in New Zealand may seem to be premised on a series of slightly incoherent policy claims, but they are grounded in a rock-solid sense of cultural grievance and nostalgia. What is evident in these protests are the last sighs from what used to be the most powerful and unified cultural and political force in New Zealand history.

Farmer power in the mid-20th Century was premised upon huge levels of economic power, in a formal political system that rewarded rural voters and sent a procession of farmer politicians to Wellington, and also in the indirect influence of a range of farming-related institutions, businesses and organisations that gave pastoral farming men a huge level of informal access to the corridors of power.

The remarkable level of power enacted by this tight little world is evidenced by the fact it was attained and maintained seemingly without effort. For many of the older farmers driving tractors in contemporary protests, this is the echo they hear: a world that existed in the middle decades of the 20th Century when their kind of New Zealander effortlessly managed the political life of the nation. The interests and needs of farmers would always be met, and any change would be driven from actors inside, not outside, their world.

The disintegration of the once all-powerful pastoral farming world in New Zealand began in the 1970s. Britain entered the European Common Market in 1973, and pastoral farming exports have steadily declined as a contributor to New Zealand’s economic welfare ever since. Pastoral farming is still a very big contributor to our economic welfare, but it is not the whole ballgame anymore.

Then the deregulatory fervour of Rogernomics in the 1980s dismantled or privatised the entire range of quasi-government organisations and producer boards that had provided so much indirect power and access to Wellington for pastoral farmers.

In their place a range of private corporations and businesses – from exporters to universities – became increasingly reoriented to take their lead from markets, clients and consumers rather than farmer stakeholders and suppliers.

A third calamity that began to really bring this decline into sharp focus came with the shift away from FPP to MMP. From 1996 onwards, the pathway to power for the National Party ceased to be via a series of marginal rural electorates, and swung towards a string of vote-rich suburbs in Auckland.

In effect, between 1973 and 1996, the once all-powerful farming world had experienced a significant decline in both its formal and its informal mechanisms for influencing and controlling whatever happened to farming in New Zealand. It would take a couple of decades, however, before the extent of that loss would start to become fully apparent.

This all took place at the same time that the wider world was dramatically changing, with changing market sentiments towards greener products, escalating environmental and animal welfare concerns, the climate crisis, and an increasing bifurcation of pastoral export chains between those who produce volumes and those who produce values.

All of these contributed to a diverging of political interests among pastoral farming groups. This is not to say that farming has entirely lost its political power. Far from it. But it is reforming and regrouping in a number of diverse ways that are less familiar to its older and more nostalgic constituents. The still influential remnant of the old corridor-alliances and world of lobbying and negotiating behind the scenes in Wellington lives on.

The truth is water quality now impacts everyone and the pollution of that water from dairy intensification won’t be tolerated.

The truth is climate change is real and we can’t allow cows to keep contributing to that.

The truth is Farmers are selling productive land to the Americans and Chinese and we must stop this for our own national interest.

The truth is the National Party are in decline and Farmers can’t get them to sell 49% of our state owned energy assets to create an irrigation slush fund worth $400million to convert as many square inches of NZ into intensified dairy farms…

It is no surprise that within the nostalgic remnant, a more extremist style of politics is taking hold. In the face of declining relevance and prestige, why not take your lead from US-derived social media telling you to hunker down on your farm, defend your property and gun rights, resist taxes, deny climate change, feel ‘racial pride’, and blame your woes on ‘urban liberals’ and ‘pretty communists’?

Luckily it’s only a small fringe who are going there, but the Groundswell protests are regrettably giving oxygen to exactly the wrong kind of farm politics if pastoral farming is going to thrive in the 21st Century.

…The truth is that large scale corporate Dairy is a sunset industry with synthetic milk and meat likely to produce far cheaper and less environmentally damaging food, (plus an end of cruelty to the animals themselves)…

Milk shake – Why the future of dairy looks scary

At a lab in San Francisco, scientists working for New Zealand synthetic dairy start-up New Culture are trying to work out how they can produce mozzarella that looks, tastes and very importantly stretches like the real thing. Across the Pacific at home in Auckland, the company’s founder Matt Gibson says, as a vegan himself, the plant-based cheese offerings that refuse to melt properly and fail to satisfy in the taste department drew him towards exploring yeast fermented dairy protein, that cuts out the need for cows.

Plant-based diets are moving from niche to mainstream as consumers become more aware of the issues of animal welfare, climate change and pressure to feed the growing population. And this shift is predicted to be a huge disruption for New Zealand dairy, as makers of lab-produced products race to take over the ingredients market our farmers rely on.

Yeast fermentation of dairy protein is not an entirely new idea. But figuring out how to make it cheaper than real dairy, minimising its environmental impact and getting over the hurdle of consumer reluctance towards genetic modification are still being worked out.

But New Zealand dairy insider, food technologist and founder of multiple dairy start-ups Danielle Appleton, says it’s other Californian start-ups using similar technology specifically to ferment dairy bulk ingredients that could bring New Zealand’s biggest export commodity to its knees.

The vast majority of New Zealand dairy ends up not as recognisable, nicely marketed products in the supermarket fridge, but as anonymous milk-based powders like whey protein and casein. These powders are mostly sold to big food and manufacturing companies as ingredients. Appleton says what comes from New Zealand paddocks ends up in not just obvious products like chocolate, yoghurts or packets of cheese sauce powder.

“When someone like me in the dairy industry thinks about milk, I think about the milk sugar that goes into paracetamol. I think about some of the ingredients used to make wine really crystal clear. Some other stuff that might surprise you are frozen foods, so often [dairy powder is used] to stop your chicken strips or bits of potato sticking together in the freezer and my favorite, [unusual place dairy ends up] is furniture paint.”

In Gibson’s lab, the milk used to make cheese is created by taking a gene that contains what he describes as the ‘instruction manual’ for a dairy protein. That set of instructions is then introduced to microbes, essentially teaching them how to make dairy proteins. When his scientists put the microbes in a fermentation tank, they ferment sugar, turning it into dairy. The scientists then harvest the proteins and combine them with plant-based fats to create a milk-like solution.

…it is time we amputated corporate Dairy before it collapses and drags the entire country into a massive economic black hole. Technology will leap frog dairy, and the millisecond synthetic milk and meat can meet consumer taste, flavour and texture at a fraction of the price, it’s over!

We need to create a sinking cap on the number of cows with a view to reducing any of the benefits Dairy have used to prop up their sunset industry and divert that resource into new industries, new technology and new research and development.

We need to support our farmers by offsetting costs to de-intensify our dairy into native forests, agricultural, hemp and cannabis crop and move away from anything other than sustainable organic dairy.

I am not interested in feeding 50million offshore, I’m interested in being able to feed the 5million here!

Dairy farmers were entrapped by banks into taking on enormous debt and we allow Fontera as a Monopoly to exist despite them screwing us on the price!

We need a new kind of farmer and we need to urgently resource them!

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38 Comments

  1. If we amputate the Dairy Industry from the NZ economy, as you suggest, Martyn, what do propose we do to replace the billions in overseas funds it earns for the country every year? It is with those foreign currencies that we are able to purchase life-saving pharmaceuticals, a whole slew of consumer goods, as well, of course, as the state-of-the-art plant and machinery needed to set up the new industries you are describing.

    Without export-generated foreign currency, NZ will become utterly dependent on direct foreign investment – further exacerbating the loss of ownership and control of this country’s resources that you complain of.

    Methinks this equation is a tad more complex than it might, at first sight, appear.

    1. All very valid points of view Comrade Trotter, however – the vast vast vast vast vast vast vast majority of our dairy is shipped out as food filler milk powder and the moment the manufactured food industry can buy a cheaper synthetic version of that out dairy industry will implode.

      1. True that Dairy is sunset. Just the farmers are in deep denial. I have been eating plant based burger patties lately and they taste great when cooked properly, same texture as ground meat ones. Patties are in the works that include plant stem liquids that make a patty “bleed” on the grill like a slightly undercooked mince one. Even confirmed meat eaters will be into them.

        Why take up thousands of acres raising oppressed and sometimes abused cattle, kill them, dismember them and eat their corpses…why? Save our waterways, less emissions, free up land use and support our four legged friends.

        1. I’m not so sure the plant based pattie that I bought, there were 18 different ingredients, clearly this is not a natural product and there is very little regulation if any, on what ingredients can be used. On the whole there is currently limited research regarding the environmental impact, resource requirements, nutrient quality, nutrient density, toxicity and health consequences of these proteins.

        2. In the plant based pattie I bought there were 18 different ingredients, clearly this is not a natural product and there is very little regulation if any, on what ingredients can be used. On the whole there is currently limited research regarding the environmental impact, resource requirements, nutrient quality, nutrient density, toxicity and health consequences of these proteins.
          They are highly processed and are probably less environmentally friendly than actual meat.

          1. A quick web search suggests anything between 12 & 200 different cell types in a body so all the animal has done is combine the ingredients within its body compared to the food production process which starts with separate ingredients then combines them to achieve the desired result. You can have whatever view you like about this however a substantial number of people consider that the process of producing animal-based food is not desirable also.

      2. “I am not interested in feeding 50million offshore, I’m interested in being able to feed the 5million here!”
        As am I first and foremost – especially when the shit starts to hit the fan as it’s inevitably going to. That said, we also have a duty to support our Pacific neighbours and others that we’ve at least contributed to worsening their predicament.

        One of the requirements of the neoliberal managerialist agenda (that’s now pervasive in the “gummint and bureacratic ecosystem going forward” (rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb) is short term thinkery. Another of course is PR bullshit and spin – and I suspect the public are starting to tire of it.
        You might recall some years ago the proposal to introduce quotas in the media for indigenous music on commercial radio because musicians and artists struggled to be heard and seen. (Probably one of the first indicators that the meerkat the meerkat wasn’t working (“in that space, going forward, rhubarb rhubarb”)
        How about we introduce quotas for everything produced in lil ‘ole NuZull that punches above its weight.
        25% perhaps of all the logs from our forest sold and processed in NZ
        25% of anything from hort/agriculcha sold in NZ

        The short term thinkery and PR bullshit and spin necessary to keep the public oblivious to the consequences of meerkat failures has fucked up just about everything.
        Education, health, housing, media, immigration, worker exploitation, refugees, employment, Treaty Compliance, the digital divide, poviddy, etc etc etc

        (Btw, continue to be noice and koind to each other @ Martyn and @ Chris)

      3. Ekshly, make it 50% to recover the costs of cleaning up the environmental damage Tex Pay-ya is, and is increasingly being expected to pay for( as long as we continue to face Mecca and worship the neoliberal agenda.

    2. Everything’s a tad more complex than it might appear. That’s no problem though, we are trained to be in a mode where complexities and realities can go unrecognised, overlooked or discounted.

      Like the covid pandemic and the handling of it. Like the environmental crisis. There’ll always be politicians, (David Seymour anyone?) enthusiastically clutching and harnessing the possibilities of the shallowness.

    3. Something to remember – container shipping powered by bunker fuel will end soon (if we are going to survive). What can we export to the world via sailing ships? Nowhere near as much. Another adjustment to take on.

    1. In 2018, agriculture contributed around 5.65 percent to the GDP of New Zealand, 20.42 percent came from industry and 65.5 percent from the service sector. (statista.com)

  3. For these farmers to talk about theft is a fucken joke when many are sitting on stolen/confiscated Maori land. This old school group who were once a force to be reckoned with but in my view there days are numbered. Many NZers especially our younger generation are sick and tired of our farmers carry on. And our farmers are quick to put their hands out for tax payers money when we have floods, MPBovis and droughts. Our farmers are also quick to remind us they are the biggest GDP contributors forgetting the good has been outweighed with the bad as they are also the biggest polluters. Times are changing and as a country we also need to change and move with the times. Some of our old school farmers are also inherently racist and many NZers are fed up and sick of this too.

    1. Mind you, unlike in NZ, most governments worldwide protect their farmers with substantial (20 bill from federal government in the US) subsidies, guaranted prices, import restrictions etc.

    2. Mind you, unlike in NZ, most governments worldwide protect their farmers with substantial (20 bill from federal government in the US) subsidies, guaranted prices, import restrictions etc.

    3. 3 waters……..how many farmers are on town supply? Don’t have septic tanks? Hooked up to town wastewater. I’ll wait………

    4. You seem to bring racism in many of your replies . CB sums it up well while colonization was not just in some areas it is not the cause of all problems .

      1. Please can this be the end of that big babble of right-wing bullshit? I would like to see some balance, with left-wing views fairly represented.

    1. It draws a class line between corporate farmers who are rip, shit and bust capitalists, and the working farmers who share the interest of ordinary workers, to make the transition to a survivable future where nature and society are in harmony. Now all we need is plan to make it happen.

  5. An important driver in the groundswell thing in our rural province, here along with all the other circumstances, is that the Prime Minister is a woman. Relatively speaking, a young woman.

    She should be in the kitchen making scones. That final straw is a kick in the teeth, a slap in the face.

    2. Have you tried her scones Peter? Not everybody has the light hand to make a good scone PM Ardern probably is better at her difficult task which needs a judicious use of power and kneading. Don’t underestimate natural talent winning out when properly applied.

  6. NZ desperately needs to diversify from ‘growing cows’, but we seem to be largely stuck with the farming mentality. If farming is effectively regulated out (which I’m not advocating), something else needs to be regulated in, preferably something innovative with a future. Something that can be conducted anywhere in the country, not just in Auckland or other larger urban centres. The country needs an economic vision, rather than drifting along as seems to be happening, always back to farming as the default. Unfortunately it might already be too late with the downturn in educational performance, slashing the potential to seriously pivot.

  7. Giving up meat and dairy and replacing the natural with stuff concocted in a laboratory. People may feel as wary of that as they do of vaccinations. People might pay a premium for meat from happy cows killedin a way that they can accept.

    And farmers that hunker down and do their own thing and isolate themselves from their rural neighbours may be a big nuisance like the fellow who decided to play a trick on everyone and left his truck on a beach while he took his children to a hidden spot inland. The government needs to get a helping approach in the near future working with farmers as essential backbone to the country and rewarding them for making the necessary moves to meet business challenges, good environmental steps, animal and worker handling standards, and climate change adaptation. Or have continual problems like the guy or female could go gun crazy like David Gray in 1990 at Aramoana and get paranoid about his neighbours and shoot them and police. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aramoana_massacre

    Or end up shooting at authority like Graham in 1940s when stressed and depressed by financial troubles.
    Through the late 1930s Graham maintained reasonably good relations with neighbours although he and his wife took little part in the district’s social life. By 1940 the Graham family was under severe financial pressure, having had cream condemned by the Westland Co-operative Dairy Company and having incurred debt from a venture into cattle breeding. William Jamieson, a neighbour and member of the dairy company’s board of directors, was aware of the decline in Graham’s cream, and noted a corresponding deterioration in Graham. ‘In himself he was different. I thought he might be slipping mentally’. Graham thought he was being persecuted by the police for not surrendering a requisitioned rifle, and by his neighbours, some of whom he believed were poisoning his cows. His wife shared his suspicions.https://teara.govt.nz/en/biographies/5g15/graham-eric-stanley-george
    Note ‘incurred debt’ – which has happened to farmers recently through some financial plans about interest swaps, or something, which have been a burden to some farmers. The small farmer can be led by the nose I think, like his bulls if he still uses them. The large ones have a raft of methods to turn a brighter penny.

  8. Trying to support government’s 3 waters, is falling into the same trap that the left did with Labour and Greens housing policy, Kiwibuild, Healthy homes, Zoning changes and bank rolling private developers with government funds. It was a dog from the beginning.

    Just mentioning Maori and low income, doesn’t make it better off for those groups, just look at what they did for housing to Maori and Low income groups (all worse off) and then duplicate that for water.

    Stop enabling, the governments stupid policies, Lefties.

    It is ok to support them, but still leave your critical faculties in place and when they hobble together their latest neoliberal, woke, plan, don’t endorse it!

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