Greenpeace calls on government to cut Big Dairy climate pollution

Written By: - Date published: 6:05 am, February 16th, 2023 - 20 comments
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Greenpeace’s petition:

CUT CLIMATE POLLUTION FROM BIG DAIRY

New Zealand’s intensive dairy industry depends on vast amounts of synthetic nitrogen fertiliser to fuel grass growth to feed too many cows. The industrial dairy sector is the biggest source of the climate pollution which drives the climate crisis and increased floods, heatwaves and storms. To date, the Labour-led government has allowed the dairy industry to escape any real regulation, while the rest of us, the environment and future generations, pay the price.

It doesn’t have to be this way. Instead, we can have thriving rural communities where people make their livelihoods farming in a way that keeps our water, land, and climate safe and healthy, through more plant-based regenerative organic agriculture. But we need government action now.

Join our call on the government to take real action to cut climate pollution from NZ’s biggest polluter: industrial dairying.

24,019 have signed. Let’s get to 25,000
I call on the NZ Parliament to cut climate pollution from big dairy by passing legislation to:
•Phase out the use of synthetic nitrogen fertiliser
•Stop the use of imported feed, like palm kernel expeller
•Support farmers to shift to diverse, regenerative and organic farming
•Halve the dairy herd by 2030

20 comments on “Greenpeace calls on government to cut Big Dairy climate pollution ”

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  1. Jenny are we there yet 1
    16 February 2023 at 8:16 am

    Maybe the government could spearhead a campaign to return our dairy conversions into cropping again. And planting those cropping lands with dairy substitutes like oats, for oat milk. And then turn those cropping lands into carbon negative sinks.

    https://www.newscientist.com/article/2359007-china-can-make-staple-crops-carbon-negative-by-adding-biochar-to-soil/?utm_source=onesignal&utm_medium=push&utm_campaign=2023-02-15-Carbon-negative

    • Jenny are we there yet 1.1
      16 February 2023 at 8:32 am

      The above shows that it can be done.

      …..we can have thriving rural communities where people make their livelihoods farming in a way that keeps our water, land, and climate safe and healthy, through more plant-based regenerative organic agriculture. But we need government action now.

      Greenpeace

      Will we have ‘government action now’?

      Extremely unlikely.

      That NGOs like Greenpeace are having to run petitions to 'call on the government to take real action now to cut climate pollution now' tells us that this government has little enthusiasm for real action now, preferring unenforceable, pie in the 50 years away sky, targets.

      When even deaths from climate disasters won’t shift the government to take real action to cut our rising emissions, I fear it will take more than a petition to shift them to take real action.

  2. SPC 2
    16 February 2023 at 8:46 am

    Halving the dairy herd

    There is promising research in reducing methane per animal by 50% (and thus not just here but worldwide), that and more efficient production per animal might achieve the same.

    • RosieLee 2.1
      16 February 2023 at 9:21 am

      Farmers should be keeping only the stock numbers their own land can sustain.

      And palm kernel should be banned immediately.

    • weka 2.2
      16 February 2023 at 10:03 am

      There is promising research in reducing methane per animal by 50% (and thus not just here but worldwide), that and more efficient production per animal might achieve the same.

      Nope. We are overstocked in terms of a range of things: GHGs, soil compaction, soil degradation, nitrogen and other pollutants, biodiversity loss, tree removal, water pollution, water usage, electricity usage… it's a long list.

      You cannot make industrial dairy sustainable, it's just not physically possible because the model is extractive not regenerative. Smaller, regenerative farms with less stock might work.

      • SPC 2.2.2
        16 February 2023 at 10:18 am

        What evidence is there that the land load is 50% overstocked?

        A 50% emissions reduction target sure – that might be within reach via less emissions per animal.

        I would see that as a separate matter to stock levels.

        Not all land is the same, not all land is suited for dairy etc.

        • weka 2.2.2.1
          16 February 2023 at 10:51 am

          that's right, we have insanely stupid levels of dairying on unsuitable land.

          You can't separate out emissions from the rest of the environment, because it's the same environment, and all the issues intersect. Fortunately the solutions all intersect as well, which is one of the great beauties of regenag.

          Re the numbers, I'm sure that Greenpeace has those figures.

  3. SPC 3
    16 February 2023 at 8:54 am

    •Support farmers to shift to diverse, regenerative and organic farming

    I'm a fan of interest free loans to farmers for the right sort of investment (environmental/transformational) to ensure better land management. A debt repaid on land sale.

    That might be more important where rivers are at risk of pollution or underground aquifers of nitrate contamination.

    Better protection of productive farmland from urban sprawl also …

  4. Maurice 4
    16 February 2023 at 10:20 am

    There have been HUGE debt mountains built on dairy farming ans the money lenders have a vested interest in the "white gold' continuing to flow to allow interest payments continuing. The first thing thta must be addressed is this debt mountain in a way that does not undermine and collapse the Banking system. The size of this problem is severely underestimated. The other monetry problem is the dependence upon milk exports for much of NZ's export income.

    Without addressing these 'elephants in the room' financial collapse looms. More so now with the huge cost of recovery from the floods which will soak up every spare dollar for the next five or ten years – compounded by present ‘Covid’ debts.

  5. Shanreagh 5
    16 February 2023 at 11:26 am

    As well as moving on from dairying we should be looking at forestry practices including

    • what to do with slash
    • a pull back from assuming that every piece of land that has trees on it is capable of having these tress removed and replanted.
    • making forests/forestry/ for conservation 'sexy' ie attractive. At the moment they, like dairying, are just a means to drag $$$$ in. Looking at species that do not need a 30 year cycle to ones that are more permanent. Focus on susrainable management by turning the focus to managing for perpetuity.
  7. Powerman 7
    16 February 2023 at 5:35 pm

    Might it be time for our agricultural industry to concentrate on feeding us instead of creating profits for overseas companies and banks and stuffing up our environment?

  8. newsense 8
    17 February 2023 at 12:02 am

    It makes me so angry that we’ve been forced to listen to the bullshit freedom morality of those who don’t want to get vaccinated or wear a mask out of consideration,

    while the water sweeping over your property full of shit and your dead neighbor, while the road that brought food to your local supermarket is washed out and constantly blocked with landslips and this is just the beginning…no power for three months. No insurance for your property.

    The people who are paying aren’t those who knew and stymied the truth.

    and worst of all when we could have been leading, using moral pressure and living up to our 100% pure slogan, we’ve picked up fossil award after fossil award…

    It was a nuclear free moment without Lange or even Prebble…

    • newsense 8.1
      17 February 2023 at 12:16 am

      Though to be fair without a Cuban missile crisis or the Berlin Wall and without big Norm Kirk leading the way so long ago…

  9. adam 9
    17 February 2023 at 12:08 am

    Ha, when here in Northland the roads and power was restored to dairy farmers before anyone else.

    Good luck Green peace, but not a snow balls chance in hell. The Dairy industry just got us by the short and curlies