What happens when Farmers start screaming for support from climate change?

It’s coming…

World’s oceans hit highest temperature on record as El Niño grows

The world’s oceans are hotter than ever recorded, new data suggests, as they suffer from human-caused climate change and the growing El Niño weather phenomenon.

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The average surface temperature of the planet’s seas outside the polar regions hit 21.1C (70F) on Saturday, according to figures from the European Copernicus climate change service.

That edges past the 21.09C recorded in March 2024, and is far above average for the time of year.

Warmer oceans can have wide-reaching consequences, including supercharging extreme weather, raising sea levels and harming marine life.

“This record is another clear signal of an ocean under growing stress,” said Dr Samantha Burgess, deputy director of Copernicus.

“El Niño is adding heat to the system, but it is doing so on top of decades of human-driven warming,” she added.

BBC

 

…National, ACT, NZF, NZ Initiative, Taxpayers’ Union, Hobson’s Pledge, Federated Farmers and the Big Polluters are all climate deniers more focused on manipulating your petty bigotries with culture war revenge fantasies than doing anything to prepare us for the reality of the catastrophic climate change coming out way.

Here’s the truth.

WE ALREADY BEND OVER BACKWARDS FOR THE BLOODY FARMERS!

We created a monopoly for them, a monopoly they use to gain the highest price offshore WHICH WE THEN HAVE TO PAY!

How can we compete with 500million Chinese middle class consumers when tiger is only 5million of us living here?

We have to pay an international price for a product that steals water and poisons the land!

A Cow shits and pisses as much as 14 humans.

There are 10million cows.

That’s 140million human pissing and shitting Ito our water ways EVERY SINGLE YEAR!

Wee bend over backwards for Farming!

We sold 49% of our electricity assets to create a $400million irrigation slush fund.

We weakened the methane targets AND we are building Fonterra an LPG terminal AND we are allowing them to secretly write policy to kill off Mike Smith’s legal case against them!

One of the arguments espoused by the Right in NZ is the economic myth of NZ Dairy and Agriculture.

We are told we have to accept higher food prices, legal monopolies, the vast amount of pollution and water use all because the Farmers create so much economic worth.

That is a myth…

New Zealand’s economic backbone not so strong

The farming sector is enjoying a boom time at the moment. Beef prices are experiencing a 60 year high, the farm gate milk price is almost $10/kgMS, wool prices have achieved a 10 year high, lamb is getting $2/kg more than last year and fruit prices are also strong. If the sector is the ‘backbone of the economy’, as is often claimed, then why is it that we are struggling to stand upright economically at the moment. Unemployment is sitting at 5.3% (over 11% for Māori and Pasifika) and households are generally struggling to make ends meet.  

The problem with agriculture is that most New Zealanders get little value from the sector. While it earns around 85% (dairy is 30%) of our export income it only adds only 5% to our total GDP. It employs just 5% of the workforce and contributes a measly 1-3% of total tax income. The income generated mainly goes to the likes of Fonterra (15 staff earn over $1 million pa), various corporates (many overseas owned) and increasing equity for farm owners who pay minimal tax. Total farm debt was almost $65 billion at the end of 2025 that helped feed the $7.5 billion net profit for our Australian owned banks.

New Zealand exports are mainly raw and semi-processed goods sold in commodity markets and those buying them make even more money from adding further value. Our low level of productivity is partly because we do little manufacturing ourselves. We are rely on quantity over quality.

More and more of our agricultural production is now owned by overseas corporates that funnel profits off shore: 50% of our forestry cutting rights, 40% of wine production and 25% of our food and beverage manufacturing.

 

We do all this and YET THE FARMERS WANT MORE!?!?

When the fuck are they going to pick up their end of the couch?

They represent 12% of the country yet have 100% control of politics, the economy and society AND YET they have the audacity to play the fucking victim like a Karen wearing gumboots!

Here’s Jordan Williams with the manufactured war on the Farms…

…Ever since the Taxpayers Union started plowing vast amounts of Dark Ag money into astroturf groups like Groundswell to corrupt due process and stir up the rednecks, NZ Farmer culture has become feral, sectarian and dominated by big money.

The Government does whatever their Farmer mates want, damn the environment and Māori interests in water!

The polling numbers don’t lie, Farmers are culturally sectarian in their allegiance to the polluters and they will never, ever, ever change…

How would farmers vote if an election were held today? The results might surprise you

National:54%

ACT:19%

NZ First:8%

Labour:3%

Greens:2%

Te Pati Māori:1%

Other:1%

Unsure:12%

 

…THEY CAN NOT BE NEGOTIATED WITH!

They are sectarian!

Labour foolishly (enabled by James Shaw) tried to cut deals with Farmers and Farmers turned and shat in our face!

Dark money from the agricultural industry soaks into the astro-turf Taxpayer’s Union stable of clients and enables Groundswell to stop any environmental improvements.

National disgracefully appointed a Dairy Industry Stooge as the Chief Scientist while bring back the 100% Pure greenwash tourism campaign!

Just consider the manner in which Corporate Dairy have seized control of NZ’s political right…

The Climate Change Commission recommends methane cuts of 35-47%. However, under pressure from lobby groups like Federated Farmers – whose ex-President Andrew Hoggard is now an ACT Party MP – the Government established a separate panel to review the methane target in line with this controversial tool. That panel landed on a much weaker methane target.

Larsson says, “The Luxon Government chose to sideline its independent, science-based climate advisory body by setting up a separate review panel with the very narrow task of giving it the answers it wanted. No wonder international climate scientists are raising the alarm.”

Further OIA documents show that the Methane Review Panel only met with agribusiness stakeholders, including a Groundswell-linked lobby group.

Greenpeace says this is just the tip of the iceberg. The organisation has unveiled documents showing the startling level of influence that groups like Federated Farmers, Dairy NZ and Beef+Lamb NZ have had over government policy. This includes writing draft policy and communications plans for Ministers. 

…consider the criticisms of Professor MacCulloch…

Perhaps the most under-explored aspect of MacCulloch’s critique is his consistent condemnation of corporate New Zealand’s underperformance. He argues that the real drag on New Zealand’s productivity isn’t just government bureaucracy, but the incompetence of private sector leadership.

Business is too focused on getting either special legislative deals from the government of the day, or else corporate subsidies from the taxpayer. According to MacCulloch, the last Government’s Covid Wage Subsidy Scheme was a giant transfer of $18bn to some of the wealthiest businesses in the country, most of whom didn’t need it.

Pointing to the stagnation of the NZX50 and the dismal share performance of dominant companies like Fletcher Building and Air New Zealand, he suggests that cushy directorships and an old boys’ club mentality have entrenched mediocrity.

…this total policy capture by polluter interests is the reason we are being attacked on the global stage by International Climate Scientists…

Scientists accuse New Zealand and Ireland of trying to cover up livestock emissions

Leading climate scientists have accused politicians in New Zealand and Ireland of using an “accounting trick” to back their sheep and cattle industries, warning their support for methane-emitting livestock could undermine global efforts to fight climate change. In an open letter shared with the Financial Times, 26 climate scientists from around the world warned that New Zealand’s proposed new methane targets risk setting a dangerous precedent. 

…that’s right!

The Corporate Dairy industry has spent millions donating to National and putting dark money into Right Wing astroturf organisations to shut down any meaningful climate emissions targets that the rest of the world has noticed the policy corruption and are now calling us out.

We are being attacked internationally for being a climate criminal all because National refuse to stand up to their Corporate Dairy interests.

The Carbon Capture ‘technology’ that National have banked all our emission offsets on doesn’t work…

Carbon capture: Pivotal project for cutting greenhouse gas emissions looks shaky

A critical part of the government’s plan for cutting greenhouse gas emissions over the next five years appears to have fallen over.

…and in the last budget National cut 50% to climate finance, barely any cuts to emissions, all while slashing foreign aid for our Pacific brothers and sisters by cutting climate aid by $100m.

This Government is a Climate Denial Government who are refusing to do anything about the coming adaptation because they are paid by the polluters.

That’s why they lowered the methane target, that’s how they have been caught out writing big polluter policy.

So how does the Left respond?

We need a completely different strategy moving forward.

Food security in New Zealand is worsening…

Foodbank demand surging across New Zealand

City Mission Whanganui faces closure as food aid demand surges another 30%

A key support agency in Whanganui is struggling to keep its doors open as food assistance requests soar.

Demand at City Mission Whanganui for food services rose more than 30% in January and February – on top of a 100% increase in 2025 from 2024.

City Mission is struggling to meet the rising demand.

NZME

The scale of food insecurity in New Zealand

600,000 Kiwis rely on Foodbanks every month and almost 180,000 children are in material hardship.

All of this in a land of plenty!

Hunger Monitor 2025: Food insecurity surges as cost of living bites – Editorial

• The 2025 Hunger Monitor report shows one in three households struggled with food access last year.
• Nearly 70% experiencing food insecurity faced it for the first time, with severe cases in one in five households.
• Waikato reported higher food insecurity at 40%, with foodbanks struggling to meet rising demand.

NZME

 

I am sick to death of having to compete with the 40 million middle class Chinese who can compete for prices to food that is grown in NZ!

New Zealand produces enough food for 40 million

By the numbers: Who is eating all of our food if we make enough to feed 40 million people?

Experts are calling for a national food plan to tackle problems of food insecurity – despite the country producing enough food to feed 40 million people a year.

New Zealand ranks 14th in the world for food self-sufficiency – but you wouldn’t always know it by our supermarket shelves.

So how much food are we actually producing, and who is eating it all?

40 million

As a nation of five million people, New Zealand feeds more than 40 million global consumers each year, according to New Zealand Trade and Enterprise.

Should New Zealand prioritise feeding its own people?

..why should we be competing against international prices for food grown here?

We need a Kiwi subsidy on all local produce to recognise that producers have already used water and generated local emissions contributing to climate change to create their product and as such consumers have already paid a price just to get the product to their table.

We should feed the 5 million here first before boasting about feeding 40 million worldwide!

Calls to ‘feed the 5 million first’ before exporting NZ food

People are going hungry even though New Zealand produces enough food to feed 40 million – and it’s spurring calls for the country to “feed the five million first”.

Almost 40% of New Zealand households experience food insecurity, while 19% of children live in households that experience food insecurity.

Poverty researcher Dr Rebekah Graham said while working on her thesis on food insecurity, she interviewed a woman who walked for 90 minutes each day to get a free community meal.

 

…it is outrageous that children born in this nation cannot taste the harvest of New Zealand, because it is being sold to the wealthy overseas!

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.

A case for subsidising local food production

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 New Zealanders 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 and the future of food security

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

If we continue to treat food purely as an export commodity rather than a human necessity, the consequences won’t just be economic — they will be social, political, and deeply destabilising.

 

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