Fed Farmers on Greenpeace
September 17th, 2009 at 6:19 am by David FarrarI love a farmer who calls it as they see it. The Dom Post reports:
Federated Farmers president Don Nicolson called the protest “economic treason”. “It’s a despicable new tactic that has Greenpeace’s loathing of farming written all over that ship.
“I fully respect the freedom of Greenpeace to protest legally but they have crossed the line by interfering with legal commerce and free navigation on the high seas.
“That’s why the police need to take this act of piracy, or sea-robbery, very seriously and prosecute those activists to the full extent of the law.”
Piracy is in fact still a crime in New Zealand. It carries a maximum sentence of 14 years. Attempted piracy is 10 years and accessory to piracy seven years.
September 17th, 2009 at 6:23 am
The Don has a forthright turn of phrase, but, he is usually only saying what everyone else is thinking.
Vote:September 17th, 2009 at 6:42 am
Economic treason my left testicle.
I’m no smelly hippy eco-fascist but implicitly defending palm oil plantations in the same breath as mentioning piracy charges is so ridiculous as to be laughable.
Responsible corporate citizens act responsibly not like halfwits.
Vote:September 17th, 2009 at 6:44 am
Robbery??? Not a Greenpeace supporter at all and not condoning what they did but how are they labeled robbers for a stupid stunt that really was an inconvenience. Someone needs a dictionary to look up the word robber.
Vote:To be a robber one has to steal. They hijakced, they put people in danger, they did all sorts of other stuff but the didn’t steal anything.
Wasting police time is not stealing, they do that everyday themselves chasing us all for minor infringements.
Greenpeace should have all costs awarded against them and removed from their bank accounts along with exporting the the foriegn named pricks that they are.
But still not robbers.eh.
September 17th, 2009 at 6:59 am
I thought a Captain at sea was master of his own little universe. Perhaps they should just cut those people out of their chains and toss them overboard.
Anyways – I heard that the reason palm oil was originally been grown was to supply bio fuel that the Greens so wanted everyone to be using. Prices went up so down come the rain forests to make the beloved bio-fuel for the Green’s. Don’t hear much about that anymore do we. Looks like the people who grow the stuff have just found other uses for their product.
Vote:September 17th, 2009 at 7:04 am
I thought a Captain at sea was master of his own little universe…
Trouble is Brian, you don’t think.
Did you notice the location of the ship at the time? Or are you as dumb as Don Nicolson who thinks 3k off Tauranga is the “high seas”?
Vote:September 17th, 2009 at 7:09 am
Greenpeace chose to make a point that way, and have to take any consequences.
But I’m surprised we’re importing stock food anyway, I thought that was what we were supposed to be good at. Producers of natural products, not fed with unfamiliar fodder. Corn is causing a lot of problems in the US, I’d hate to go the same way here.
Consumer pressure may be a better approach, except that the domestic market just tends to get the dregs so may not be enough market pressure.
Vote:September 17th, 2009 at 7:14 am
The thing about environmentalism is that it a good thing to care about the environment, which everybody does, but it has been hijacked by over privileged goofs who loath capitalism with a vengeance and use it to undermine any economic activity they choose.
And palm oil’s real crime – it is a great product with the potential to bring a lot of people out of poverty – and so it must be stopped by any means available.
Vote:September 17th, 2009 at 7:21 am
Palm oil isn’t a great product. Its very unhealthy and tastes like shit.
Vote:September 17th, 2009 at 7:22 am
“And palm oil’s real crime – it is a great product with the potential to bring a lot of people out of poverty ”
It is not a natural fodder for cows, so is it good to be feeding it to them? How does it change the milk they produce?
And is it sustainably produced?
Vote:September 17th, 2009 at 7:25 am
another pathetic grandstanding protest from greenpeace.
How DARE Malaysians, Indonesians and people from Pacific Islands grow Palm plantations, and try to sell their agricultural crops!
How DARE New Zealand dairy farms buy feed supplements to earn the income this country needs to keep providing middle class kids with subsidised university education!
I binned my Greenpeace membership nearly 20 years ago. They are another unaccountable multinational which stages pointless stunts to raise funds to maintain its organisation.
Support Greenpeace, lets all be subsistence farming hippies!
Vote:September 17th, 2009 at 7:27 am
Cerium;
The palm kernal extract is a by product of palm oil production, the most of which is actually burned as waste.
Using it as supplementary feed for cattle is a win for everybody – including the environment.
Vote:September 17th, 2009 at 7:27 am
Cerium does have a point.
Palm oil by-product isn’t a natural food source for cows. Given the unhealthy oils in palm oil, whats that doing to the milk fat?
Vote:September 17th, 2009 at 7:27 am
Cerium, who cares what it tastes like? if you are a poor person living in the Pacific or indonesia, palm is a sustainable resource. Its easy to grow and tend, and produces a crop that you can sell to pay for things like, oh, food, healthcare, education, those luxuries.
and as someone pointed out, palm is also a major source of biofuels/
how dare poor countries try and get ahead.
Vote:September 17th, 2009 at 7:34 am
The copper this morning said the crimes they are charged with carry a meximum of 2 years.
In terms of palm oil kernels, as has been pointed out, these are a waste by product, people arent cutting down the rain forests to send cattle feed to New Zealand. It’s a pretty long bow to draw between NZ dairy farming and deforestation (noting Fonterra claims all the kernels come from sustainable plantations anyway).
Cows in New Zealand have always been given supplemental feed (typically hay and sillage). In relatively recent times, more intensive farming has developed. I know a farm in Saudi Arabia which gets 14,000 litres per cow per year from intensive (barn, grain-fed) dairying, versus (say) 4000l/cow/year from a traditional lower intensity pasture farm. It’s just an input cost/output tradeoff.
As to taste impact on milk, no idea, but we are talking a miniscule fraction of total feed given to cows so I doubt it is detectable.
Vote:September 17th, 2009 at 7:35 am
What animals eat makes a big difference to what they produce, as anyone who has noticed the difference between wild and commercial pork, or battery and free range eggs. Some people may not care about taste, but some do and should have a choice, and not have unknowns sneaked into the market.
There are issues in the US with so much corn feed, cow guts are not designed for it. Wasn’t mad cow disease a result of unnatural fodder?
It’s difficult to market (with a straight face) green and naturally produce when you import the fodder.
Vote:September 17th, 2009 at 7:37 am
“Wasn’t mad cow disease a result of unnatural fodder? ”
Pretty long bow to draw between feeding one form of vegetation over another and feeding cows on other dead cows; but reason and rationality have never been a major part of the eco-terrorist thought process.
Vote:September 17th, 2009 at 7:39 am
Economic treason – what a twat.
Vote:September 17th, 2009 at 7:42 am
DPF what do you mean that piracy is ‘still’ a crime in NZ. It jolly well ought to be. Ask the local Mearsk agent what he thinks. Slavery is stiill a crime but no one has suggested removing it from the ststute books.
Vote:September 17th, 2009 at 7:44 am
“Antibiotics are routinely added to grain feed as a growth stimulant. Cattle consume 70% of the antibiotics in the United States. This practice widely contributes to the rise of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, including MRSA. Where MRSA once was contained to rare cases in hospitals, it is now becoming community-acquired due to its emergence in the feedlot.”
“Most grass-fed cattle are leaner than feedlot beef, lacking marbling, which lowers the fat content and caloric level of the meat. Meat from grass-fed cattle also have higher levels of Conjugated Linoleic Acid (CLA) and the Omega-3 fatty acids ALA, EPA, and DHA. While the research on CLA is unclear with regard to humans, it has shown many positive effects in animals in the areas of heart disease, cancer, and the immune system”
“In dairy herds, grazed cattle typically have a reduced need for antibiotics relative to grain-fed cattle, simply because the grazed herds are less productive. A high-energy feedlot diet greatly increases milk output, measured in pounds or kilograms of milk per head per day, but it also increases animal physiological stress, which in turn causes a higher incidence of mastitis and other infectious disease, more frequently requiring antibiotic therapy.”
“A study by Cornell University has determined that grass-fed animals have as much as 80% less of this strain of E. coli in their guts than their grain-fed counterparts.”
Palm based fodder may not be a problem. But I think we should know about what other changes go with it.
Vote:September 17th, 2009 at 7:44 am
Greenpeace might have had a case if they were concerned about the biosecurity risk of the imports. But they’ve got the wrong target in attacking Fonterra for using PKE which is a waste product. As Fed Farmers said in an earlier meida release palm plantations aren’t planted to generate a waste product just as newspapers aren’t produced to support recycling.
Vote:September 17th, 2009 at 7:48 am
Yes if trying to link feed palm oil kernels to BSE doesnt work lets try and drag anti-biotics into the debate and see if that sticks.
Vote:September 17th, 2009 at 7:50 am
Thank god!
Fed farmers issued a PR statement.
Stand down everyone
Vote:September 17th, 2009 at 7:50 am
“Colin McKinnon, upper North Island chairman of the Federated Farmers’ maize growers’ committee, said the protest was justified.
He said no PKE should be imported as it was “totally crushing” local grain producers and was a biosecurity risk to New Zealand.”
Totally crushing local producers….. biosecurity risk. Which is it?
Farmers here in NZ use “biosecurity risk” as a means of protectionism for local producers. Whichever people say NZ has an open economy they are lying.
Vote:Means NZ consumers paying through the nose.
September 17th, 2009 at 8:15 am
expat said: I’m no smelly hippy eco-fascist but implicitly defending palm oil plantations in the same breath as mentioning piracy charges is so ridiculous as to be laughable.
Not often I agree with you expat, but I do here. Federated Farmers need to pull their heads out of their arses and tell their members that importing unsustainably produced palm kernel that Indonesian and Malaysian rain forest has been cleared to grow in order to support stock intensities in New Zealand that cannot otherwise be sustained by the land being farmed is a very poor look.
Plus the biosecurity risk. Live insects, toxic fungi, and plant material are frequently being found in palm kernel imports, so they are being fumigated with methyl bromide – an extraordinarily toxic chemical the use of which as a fumigant is prohibited in many countries.
Vote:September 17th, 2009 at 8:23 am
tres dodgy richard
Vote:September 17th, 2009 at 8:30 am
Ah fuck!
Any support for the anti palm kernel cause I may have had has just evaporated.
“Not often I agree with you expat, but I do here. Federated Farmers need to pull their heads out of their arses and tell their members that importing unsustainably produced palm kernel that Indonesian and Malaysian rain forest has been cleared to grow in order to support stock intensities in New Zealand that cannot otherwise be sustained by the land being farmed is a very poor look.”
I make it a rule, once the commies jump on the band wagon and start telling us what we should or must do then I lose all interest.
Vote:September 17th, 2009 at 8:35 am
KiwiGreg re your post @ 7.34
I can’t believe I am going to defend Greenpeace *sigh* seriously, it grieves me.
Let me put it this way, NZ is a large corporation and we are shareholders (which is actually true). This is the basis of my next statement.
I think Greenpeace in general are a bunch of clowns I haven’t given them a cent in 20 years, but for once I think they have achieved something worthwhile. They have drawn attention to the issue of forests being felled to be replaced by palm oil plantations.
KiwiGreg, palm oil may be a by-product but creating a market for it encourages the ripping down of “real” forests to clear land for planting, they don’t exactly have thousands of acres of clear farmland in Asia. It is disingenuous to simply portray it as a by-product.
My main point:
No matter whether you are pro or con pulling down forests for the sake of profit from by-product, there is a more important issue that must never be forgotten. Our biggest exports and our biggest revenue earner, tourism, are totally dependent on our image. From a marketing perspective it is critical. Any damage to it, perceived or real will cost us substantially.
Think of this purely from a business point of view, ignore the emotion and hype.
Look what happened to Cadbury recently in our tiny market alone, extrapolate that to a world market which our life blood and years of hard graft developing a brand depend on. Remember Cadbury insisted they used Palm Oil from “sustainable sources”, didn’t do them a lot of good. Think about how long it takes to develop a brand and then realise how easily it is destroyed. It’s a no brainer. All the greatest brand disasters have changed something, they tampered with a winning formula. Think New Coke in the 70′s.
One of the best ad campaigns in Europe was for Stella Artois, it showed a farmer in gumboots and tweed jacket in France calling to visit a friend driving a Ferrari, his friend has a Lamborghini in the driveway. The point of the ad was you pay a lot for our product but all the ingredients were natural, organic and basically the best money can buy.
Rather than aiming for volume as Fonterra seem to aim for, quality should be our goal. This should be expanded to everything we do. It is our niche. We can’t compete on volume.
Overseas people’s vision of a NZ farm is cows, gumboots and swandris, not intensive farming run by mini corporations. If Fonterra ever list on the stock market our export industry will suffer hugely.
Right, I’ve taken my hand knitted sweater off and thrown the lentils in the bin. Time for work, I’ll read the abuse later.
Vote:September 17th, 2009 at 8:39 am
I would like to know where the greenpeace clowns came from, they sounded awfully… foreign and rent a crowd-like.
Be a shame if they weren’t told to leave after a few days in remand at Mt Eden.
Vote:September 17th, 2009 at 8:45 am
Don Nicolson touched on it this morning but only mentioned the lesser part, saying ship “piracy” – making a protest – was a bad look for international trade because other countries would see that selling stuff to us was risky. He didn’t say the obvious – that being seen to be gumboot deep in palm oil wasn’t a good look for Fonterra’s outgoing trade.
Fonterra and dairy farmers have to decide if pumping up short term gains in production and profit will be worth it.
Vote:September 17th, 2009 at 8:45 am
LOL I’d be gob-smacked if ANY tourist (let alone just about any New Zealander) even knew farmers were feed palm oil kernels to cows. I’d be even more gob smacked if the knowledge made an iota of difference to anybody’s travel plans. Seriously do you research a country’s environmental and business situation before you go there or do think “ohh I want to see the pyramids”.
Here are the main “environmental” reasons to attack New Zealand dairying:
- although NZ produces only 3% of world dairy we account for about 40% of the global trade. This is wasteful of resources as food should be produced close to consumers to avoid fuel costs
- reducing dairy farmers’ incomes increases equality in New Zealand as dairy farmers typically earn above the average
- dairying creates bad climate change gases and otherwise harms the environment and reducing our dairying will reduce this
- reducing NZ exports will lower our ability to import, further reducing environmental damage
- damaging dairying will reduce NZ wealth, making it easier to justify controlling NZer’s lives
- eliminating intensive farming will move us closer to the desirable end game of everyone (all 50,000 of us remainiinig) sustainably living in grass huts and farming organic vegetables.
Vote:September 17th, 2009 at 8:55 am
i stopped buying Cadbury when they stopped using palm oil.
Vote:September 17th, 2009 at 9:00 am
Cerium,
Wasn’t mad cow disease a result of unnatural fodder?
Yes, but that was to do with cattle being fed meat and bone meal of other cattle, not corn (how i don’t know, maybe they mixed it with corn).
Vote:September 17th, 2009 at 9:07 am
KiwiGreg – I appreciate what you say but I believe it’s a bit more subtle than that. Federated Farmers are obviously concerned enough about it to call it “economic sabotage”. They perceive brand damage.
No I don’t think people research environmental issues before traveling, but a paragraph in a news item is just another straw. On its own this may not be a major issue but combined with lots of other events it amounts to brand damage.
Personally I dislike being sold an image and then finding out it wasn’t true. It may or may not cause me to boycott immediately but it taints the experience and may affect my next purchase or how I talk about the product to others. Subtle stuff.
The classic marketing mantra used to be “sell the sizzle, not the steak”, consumers are getting more sophisticated these days, they want both.
Vote:September 17th, 2009 at 9:14 am
Palm Oil demand is increasing because of an increase in demand for BIOFUEL.
Greenpeace and all the other enviro-nutters are so incredibly thick. If guess Fonterra is just a nice juicy target.
Why not chain themselves to some farmer’s gate, or to a cow (end-user)?
(Though I can see their reasoning for a boat moored of the coast – less risk involved – if the farmer was worth his red-bands, he’d shoot them or set his dog on them…)
Yeah, I believe feeding palm kernel is bad for NZ farming’s image.
But I can’t see the NZ cow cocky as being the root of all evil, the reason why Malaysia et al have been deforesting the rainforest to grow more Palms.
They grow more palms and build more refineries so the CEO or High Priest of Greenpeace can run his car on Biodiesel.
Idiots all of them. Hypocrites.
Vote:September 17th, 2009 at 9:18 am
Dammit, where is a French intelligence service agent when you need one?
Vote:September 17th, 2009 at 9:27 am
Oh I am so wounded. When you stop being a little coward and hiding behind a nickname I might take you seriously. Then again – probably not even then.
Vote:September 17th, 2009 at 9:27 am
@Rufus 9.14 am:
Greens, Greenpeace and other environmentalists oppose unsustainably produced biofuels more strongly than probably anyone. Jeanette Fitzsimons even has a Bill before Parliament to prevent their use in New Zealand.
Suggest you check out your facts before you hurl accusations that have no foundation in fact. The strongest pro-biofuel lobby is actually corporate agriculture, who see in the context of rising oil prices the possibility of making a killing (unfortunately, in more ways than one) by converting land that has been in food production into biofuel production.
Vote:September 17th, 2009 at 9:29 am
HAHAHA thats shocking
Vote:September 17th, 2009 at 9:29 am
The “we must not tarnish our clean, green image” argument is overused in NZ. Sometimes it’s valid, but we vastly over-estimate it’s impact in two ways.
(1) We assume all foreigners are monitoring New Zealand for evidence of whether we’re living up to our image or not. They aren’t. Most are vaguely aware of New Zealand and have a stereotype of it as a near-empty leafy paradise. As we all know, stereotypes don’t change without strong motivation and strong motivation doesn’t exist when you barely even think of a place. We’re spending a lot more reinforcing the stereotype via tourism and product advertising than any media coverage could ever undo… advertising operates in that “don’t care” space where the stereotype lives. Media articles only work if you already care.
(2) We also assume that the image factors into purchase decisions more than it does. For some products it’s a point of difference that NZ producers play up, so it might sway a few customers. Mostly, consumers buy based on price or quality and not where something comes from. When the seller is Fonterra and the buyers are large multinational food corporations (i.e. not even the end consumer) then it matters not a jot.
So, worrying about our image is a waste of time.
On a related note, I wish people would stop whinging about how other run their business and simply take them on if they think there’s a market. Start your own organic grass-fed dairy herd and sell your product at a premium to discerning customers. Even if you think we’re all “shareholders in NZ” then let’s run with that metaphor… pretend you’re managing a green start-up spin-off and spread your message on the back of your success instead of sending snippy memos to try to get other departments to change.
Vote:September 17th, 2009 at 9:41 am
“Suggest you check out your facts before you hurl accusations that have no foundation in fact”
What a pity that the Greens do not live by that rule Toad.
Vote:September 17th, 2009 at 9:44 am
Camryn, food miles are being pushed as a protectionist weapon, shipping in fodder from overseas won’t help Fonterra with that argument. Fair or not that is how the game is being played.
Vote:September 17th, 2009 at 9:46 am
I’m with Cerium on this one – cows eat grass. However Greenpeace have a natural choice – advocate that people do not buy NZ dairy products. These people should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.
Vote:September 17th, 2009 at 9:47 am
Rufus is right, Greenpeace are fuckwits of the highest order. Why don’t these heroes go to Asia and protest at the source but been the gutless wonders they are better to protest in NZ and get hit with a wet bus ticket rather then a bullet between the eyes somewhere in Asia.
Most will know I’m a dairy farmer but I have never fed palm kernel to my cows, it’s false economy. Many farmers got themselves in deep shit with the palm kernel importers. In the 2008/ 2009 season they signed contracts for palm kernel for the 09/10 season on price and volume set in 08. What happen, the payout dropped by 30%, what was cheap feed in early 2008 became uneconomical in 2009. Many are facing legal action as some have reneged on their contracts. Palm Kernel is a good supplement to feed if you are in a fed pinch but many farmers have spent thousands on feed out systems and have over stocked their farms in the belief Palm Kernel is a magic bullet, they are in to far to back out. As far as I’m concerned it’s a trap I won’t go there. Better to milk less cows, feed them a diet of good NZ grass and please the bank manager.
Vote:September 17th, 2009 at 9:50 am
Camryn you are missing the point, one of New Zealand’s biggest competitive advantages is it’s brand which is tied to clean and green whether you like it or not. Sure we do things efficiently but others are catching up. If we try and compete on a volume basis alone we are screwed. As was pointed out by KiwiGreg, we have to transport our goods thousands of kilometres which involves time and money. It has to be factored into pricing decisions.
When the USA, Europe, China and South America have learned to farm the same way we do (which they are doing) then we won’t be able to compete on price. Let’s not even discuss trade barriers and tarriffs.
If there is going to be no difference between the quality, perceived or otherwise, of our product and the local one why would people buy ours?
I promise you, I am not approaching this from an environmental angle, purely business.
As for your remarks about people starting their own farm, don’t be facetious. You’re points were good up until there.
Vote:September 17th, 2009 at 9:53 am
side show bob – didn’t know you were a dairy farmer. Good to hear the perspective of someone on the front line and not someone sucking a latte in Wellington. Your points are interesting.
Vote:September 17th, 2009 at 9:55 am
“Better to milk less cows, feed them a diet of good NZ grass and please the bank manager.”
Good to hear that. SSB, do you think if this issue was just left alone it would mostly fizzle out anyway as the contracts run their course or do you think palm kernel will still attract a few farmers?
Vote:September 17th, 2009 at 10:04 am
Cerium – good question.
Vote:September 17th, 2009 at 10:10 am
I didn’t mean to be facetious. I know that taking competitive action is more difficult than lobbying, but I also think it’s more effective. Perhaps I should’ve suggested investing in producers that hold to standards you support or simply changing your own consumption patterns (as others have done).
As for “missing the point”. Actually, I think you’ve missed mine. I do agree that we are too distant to compete on price in many cases so we have to compete on quality and brand. I suggest that “Clean and green” is an aspect of quality (tangible) as well as a “brand” aspect (perception). My point is that the brand aspect (perception) is less salient than we often tend to think (e.g. when the product is being sold to an intermediate producer rather than an end consumer) and as a component of quality it’s often just one amongst many. For instance, the environment IS part of what makes NZ milk products high-quality, but being grass-fed is just one aspect of that and being slightly-less grass-fed is unlikely to change anything. Fonterra’s customers will make objective decisions based on the measurable quality of the product, not subjective decisions based on third party concerns. Also, much of the quality of NZs milk products derived from other factors unrelated to “clean and green” such as the cleanliness of the raw products (Fonterra’s standards on mastitis and drenching etc) and the investment in processing technologies and specialist products that they make. Many of these are just as non-replicable advantages as the green aspects of quality.
Vote:September 17th, 2009 at 10:14 am
It is ironic that New Zealand cut down all of it`s forests to develop the country and produce a first world standard of living but God forbid a poor country that wants to do the same.
By the way the only thing that stopped there being massive starvation in our dairy herd during the big drought of 07/08 was huge amounts of imported PKE.
Vote:September 17th, 2009 at 10:17 am
We could just feed the cows dead cows rather than grass. I’m sure there are no issues with feeding them whatever is economic to make a buck – right ?
Aother way to look at this – humans shouldn’t be drinking cows milk so really who cares what we feed them to produce a product that natuarally humans should not be consuming anyway.
Vote:September 17th, 2009 at 10:25 am
burt – The adult lactose-tolerance mutation was a major evolutionary success factor in cold Europe, and allowed the populations there (that many of us descend from) to flourish to an extent not otherwise possible.
Vote:September 17th, 2009 at 10:27 am
Three points. First, our export customers will ultimately decide whether NZ dairy farmers use palm kernel. With protectionism resurgent in Europe and America we will soon again face an oversupplied dairy market. With prices down, foreign consumers will also be susceptible to Greenpeace type propaganda about NZ milk purchases helping wipe out Orangutan tree homes. This will be on top of Green anti-NZ food-miles propaganda, supported by local farmers.
Second, the drive for biofuels because of the Green-led global warming panic has been a leading cause of the palm-kernel imports into NZ. Biofuels will go down as one of the great confidence tricks in Western history. Even in NZ we have the Government-owned entity that runs coal mining growing biofuel crops on land that might otherwise have been growing stockfeed grains that might have been an alternative to palm kernel.
The diversion of vast amounts of chiefly American grain farmland into biofuels has driven up world agriculture prices, one of the reasons for the dairy bubble in NZ, with even sheep-country hills being converted in the last two years to dairy farms at the cost of millions of a dollars a time. High world grain prices also also led to conversion of southern grain farms to dairy farms. Many of these, especially in the far south, grew feed grain. The high world prices of wheat that arose from the biofuel expansion in America have also diverted some cropping in NZ from feed grain to human-consumption grain.
For NZ dairying, the ultimate upshot of the biofuel boom has been an expansionary bubble which has included resorting to substantial livestock fodder imports.
Third, but less important: with the out-of-kilter and volatile NZ dollar, livestock feed imports provide a small offset to export farming. When the kiwi dollar is high and their income suffers the price of imported feed imports, such as palm kernel, falls, providing a small offset.
So IMHO two out of three of the main causes of the surge in palm-kernel imports, which peaked around a million tonnes a year, come back to the Greens.
Vote:September 17th, 2009 at 10:30 am
Camryn – Thanks for the clarification, I take your points on board.
Vote:September 17th, 2009 at 10:44 am
side show bob said: …many farmers have spent thousands on feed out systems and have over stocked their farms in the belief Palm Kernel is a magic bullet, they are in to far to back out. As far as I’m concerned it’s a trap I won’t go there. Better to milk less cows, feed them a diet of good NZ grass and please the bank manager.
Wow – some interesting agreements today SSB. You just make so much sense on this, and what you say is what the Greens have been saying all along about dairy farming. Oh, and the bit about nitrous oxide emissions as well, which a sensible stocking level also helps to manage.
Vote:September 17th, 2009 at 11:11 am
>>The strongest pro-biofuel lobby is actually corporate agriculture, who see in the context of rising oil prices the possibility of making a killing (unfortunately, in more ways than one) by converting land that has been in food production into biofuel production.
Toad, funny you should say that.
It seems as long as the greenies support something, no matter how many millions some people are making, they are wonderful altruists. Money doesn’t come in it, it is all about the environment
A certain ex-vice president comes to mind
But the suddenly they turn, and they become evil capitalists no matter how poor
Vote:September 17th, 2009 at 11:15 am
For those who think all of this will not impact our image abroad, read this article http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/10/science/10fish.html?_r=1&scp=3&sq=new%20zealand&st=cse, basically it takes bugger all to convince someone to skip NZ as a destination, the flight is nasty & it’s expensive & along way to travel, combine that with the increasing sensitivity of urban dwellers to the environment & animal welfare + NZ being 100% pure & it’s a perfect storm.
Vote:This particular case I think is pushing the limits, but it only takes one journo in the UK with a chip on their shoulder about NZ (they hate aussie generally, but alot of expats here are not happy, so easy enough to find one ) & rainforest clearing & you’ve got a story.
The fundamental point though is the Chairman of Fed(up) Farmers is showing a shocking & disturbing lack of understanding of his organisations consumers, I’ll repeat urban dwellers are becoming very environmentally aware & just look at DPF to see how sensitive to animal welfare they are becoming, you can argue all you like about the logic of it, but it’s a marked trend & you won’t change it & just look at Apple’s marketing to see how you need to be on the right side of environmental friendliness if you want to sell product to urban dwellers in the 21st century.
September 17th, 2009 at 11:30 am
It would be useful for the uses of palm oil to become commonly known (cosmetics and processed food being two of the largest items) and also for an understanding of what happens at a palm oil extraction facility.
Traditionally the ones I have seen have been relatively self-sustaining (wow ….. sustainability …. quick, get Helen) and have burnt the waste kernel in their boilers to produce the steam and power required for the extraction process and the heavy machinery that it involves.
It is a dirty, stinking process so one does wonder where the power comes from if you lose the fuel supplied by the kernel. Also, the effects of closing the market for kernel extract on greenhouse gas emissions if the refineries return to their “recycling” ways. One suspects that the cure will be worse than the disease.
The real issue is one of the economics of alternative land uses and the question asked by Greenpeace should be one of how do we make the native forest more valuable to retain than to cut it down and plant rat infested oil palm plantations?
Vote:September 17th, 2009 at 11:42 am
Just to shed some light on why farmers use PKE-
It is high in fibre and energy but has no protein so is a useful suppliement when combined with fast growing spring/autumn pastures which are high in protein but low in fibre.If you were to feed your cows solely on PKE you would have very fat cows that produced no milk.
John Key said on the radio today that PKE makes up 1% of the NZ dairy herd diet just to put it in perspective.
Vote:September 17th, 2009 at 12:25 pm
Yarrr. There be palm kernel derivative in that thar vessel, me hearties… that’ll be just the thing to feed me sea cows. Yarr.
Vote:September 17th, 2009 at 12:35 pm
One of the greenies was hanging on the anchor chain. Easily solved, pull in the anchor.
“Captain, we seem to have a viscous red substance all through these cogs right here..”
Vote:September 17th, 2009 at 1:03 pm
Cerium The right wing soul in me says let the market dictate, as I said I believe it is a false economy given the payout level at present. Sooner or later individual farmers will have to chose but Palm Kernel has it’s place. Better to see cows happy and well fed then walking skeletons. Animal welfare comes first no matter what the cost, can’t milk dead cows.
What most seem to forget is that PKE is a by product. NZ is probably only consuming 1% of the PKE produced. A lot is now used for power production and this has also placed greater demands on PKE and thus costs will climb, in other words it will price itself off the market.
Toad, Last year I was approached by directors of a new organic milk factory opening in my area. As we use no urea and have not done so for 20 or so years,I hate the fucking stuff, use homeopathic remedies to treat sick animals, no antibiotics, and our farming practices are a fair bit different then the average farm they thought I would like to go organic. I’m still thinking about it but it is a big step and to sale all my shares in Fonterra is a bit scary. I’m also not convince that organics are as strong as many would claim. In many countries the organic milk market has fallen over as the recession bits. People need to eat but they won’t pay through the nose when money is tight.
Vote:September 17th, 2009 at 1:14 pm
Is the co-op you were talking to going to pay a premium to convert Bob?At the moment Fonterra are paying 45/centskg to convert to organic production and are signing up dozens where I live.Fonterra are also having a advertising blitz in the farming media to get farmers to convert.
All this suggests one thing,that Fonterra see a big future for organic milk.
By the way I was reading a article the other day that made the case that PKE is cheaper than growing grass using urea with the high price of urea at the present.
Vote:September 17th, 2009 at 1:15 pm
Don’t do it SSB. Organic anything is about marketing a difference. A unique selling proposition. There is nothing in it for the consumer other than a temporary feel good factor.
Vote:September 17th, 2009 at 1:42 pm
“There is nothing in it for the consumer other than a temporary feel good factor.”
I’d feel better about using milk produced by SSB than a few of the alternatives. But I believe Fonterra are quite tough on some things, eg they will reject a tanker if there is any antibiotics in it?
Sounds risky (supply and price) to me relying on imported fodder when you get caught short. Pushing production to hard can leave little margin for error, or bad luck.
Vote:September 17th, 2009 at 2:06 pm
NZ is probably only consuming 1% of the PKE produced.
25%, actually.
Vote:September 17th, 2009 at 2:36 pm
Towaka & OTGO as far as I’m concerned organics is a bit of a con. If I put two classes of milk on the table and asked you to chose the organic one you would be right 50% of the time but you would not get it 100% right all the time, you can’t tell the difference. I’m not talking about processed milk but milk straight out of the cow. I’m afraid most of our urban dwellers have been sold an idea that organics are better, don’t “buy” it. All organics does is separate the gullible from their money. I could tell you horror stories about so called “organics” but lets just say that organic to Towaka may mean a totally different thing to organic for OTGO. But if one is to stay true to “organics” as far as dairy farming goes one must be on to it big time. I’m also not convinced the premium paid to supply organic milk makes up for lost production compared to the payout paid to those using normal farming practices.
georgedarroch, thanks didn’t know it was that much but this figure will have to drop unless PKE gets cheaper or the payout increases.
Vote:September 17th, 2009 at 2:54 pm
george darroch – I understand that we took 25% of the PKE traded but I think you will find that the vast bulk is recycled as a fuel to drive the extraction plants. So the 1% of production may well be correct. It would be good to see some numbers with clear definitions to settle this one.
Vote:September 17th, 2009 at 2:55 pm
>>The fundamental point though is the Chairman of Fed(up) Farmers is showing a shocking & disturbing lack of understanding of his organisations consumers, I’ll repeat urban dwellers are becoming very environmentally aware
Is that right?
Vote:Well not in America any more
Only a (shrinking) minority still believe in Anthropogenic Global Warming
http://www.angus-reid.com/polls/view/fewer_in_us_blame_humans_for_global_warming/
September 17th, 2009 at 3:06 pm
“Only a (shrinking) minority still believe in Anthropogenic Global Warming”
US polls and science often don’t coincide – nearly half still don’t believe in evolution, and not many less think the earth was created 600 years ago.
Vote:September 17th, 2009 at 3:12 pm
Getting back on topic. A bunch of nut jobs broke the law to protest about a perfectly legal imported product, imported for perfectly legal business purposes.
All you folk who think that because you believe NZ has a “clean green image” you are entitled to tell dairy farmers how to farm are wrong. I dont want to live in a country where you are right. By all means exercise whatever vote you think you have as consumers and buy whatever milk you like.
Vote:September 17th, 2009 at 3:13 pm
“the earth was created 600 years ago.”
Think you dropped a zero – it was 4004 BC or some such wasnt it?
Vote:September 17th, 2009 at 3:32 pm
Yeah, well, as Bok would say, once you get more than a few it’s just a number.
Vote:September 17th, 2009 at 3:33 pm
SSB,if you are not using chemical fertilizers on your farm why would you have a dramatic drop in production if you went organic?
I agree that there is not that big a difference between conventional and organic milk produced in NZ but most NZ organic dairy products go to the US where many of the people there have woken up to the industrial/feedlot production there.Which includes using a bovine hormone so the cows produce plenty but have a short life span and end up with ulcerated udders.
Due to these reasons the organic industry in the US is growing at a phenomenal rate with most of the US organic milk being sold as liquids so Fonterra organic cheese and powders compliments it nicely.
Vote:September 17th, 2009 at 4:12 pm
>>nearly half still don’t believe in evolution, and not many less think the earth was created 600 years ago.
Yeah a minority, and a minority believe in AGW
Vote:They are both crazy extremist fantasies
What’s your point?
September 17th, 2009 at 4:29 pm
towaka, there are many variables when it comes to organic farming, fertilizer is but one. In fact the old saying of ,”fools rush in”, when dealing with organics should be taken seriously. A couple of examples. Feed: If you run short of feed on your farm you may want to buy in feed, be careful. True organic farmers can only buy feed from farms certified organic and if there is a drought or bad weather feed can be extremely hard to get and very expensive if one is a true “organic”. Sprays, weed control, can be a huge issue, again rules are tight if one is “organic”. Stock, again true organic farmers are limited in the stock available as the stock has to be raised on farms that are certified “organic. There are many other pitfalls, best to go in with eyes wide open.
As for a phenomenal growth of organics in the states, I wouldn’t get to excited yet, there is a lot of crap going down over there, time will tell. It also looks like Fonterra will attempt to move further into the US this year. So many farmers in the states could soon be working for us.
Vote:September 17th, 2009 at 5:04 pm
You know what people who invade ships are called?
Pirates.
And you know what happens to captured pirates?
They get hanged.
Just saying.
Vote:September 17th, 2009 at 5:14 pm
d’you know what people who clear-fell virgin forest are called…?
fucken arsewipe scumbags..(of the worst kind..)..(as shorthand for a diatribe against them..)
d’you know what people who buy the products from that clear-felled forest are called..?
the same as those other ‘fucken arsewipe scumbags’..
phil(whoar.co.nz)
Vote:September 17th, 2009 at 5:24 pm
There was a bit of breeze building yesterday. I’m surprised the captain of the East Ambition didn’t just let out a bit more anchor chain
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10597892
Vote:September 17th, 2009 at 5:25 pm
Nah, you’ve been watching too many movies, mate. They get asylum these days.
Vote:September 18th, 2009 at 4:34 pm
A proven fact that bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) feed, aka mad-cow disease (MCD) has caused loss of lives. There is also that stuff pumped into the cow to alter milk production and was challenged by another NZ scientist.
Palm Kernel has a high quality oil, and why would farmers feed it to the cows?
If farmers have nothing to hide then why not conduct safety tests and label food for consumers to make informed democratic decisions?
Failing to provide safety data for consumers is a risk they take, and any economic treason is blamed on the farmers themselves.
Consumers’ health, welfare and wellbeing have to be secured somehow, and farmers are short on supply. Other researches in the EU have found a relationship between Obesity, Diabetes, and internal cancer to GE/GM foods….
Vote: