All those articles and memes circulating now about how terrible meat and dairy is for the environment, they’re based on global statistics that don’t take into account local variations. They’re measuring the impact of farming like this, which isn’t really farming so much as a grotesque industrial machine.
This is the worst of what we do. The push towards veganism wants to replace it with this,
When measuring global statistics, the second photo is apparently an improvement, but in terms of climate, biodiversity, water and sanity, the latter is us just killing ourselves (and everything else) a bit more slowly.
These two kinds of farming aren’t done in New Zealand (yet) and so our farming can’t be compared to this in terms of impact. However most people in New Zealand choosing to go vegan ‘for the environment’ are choosing to swap our conventional pasture raised sheep and beef for the soy desert above (by and large we’re not growing our own soy yet). The point here isn’t to go boo vegans, it’s to point starkly to the problems with the current food and environment debate.
Enter regenerative agriculture, which by definition regenerates land, and does so by not treating it as a giant mine to plunder.
Yep, that’s what we could be choosing instead. That’s an agroforestry farm, a kind of farming that integrates trees, stock, and ground crops.
Here’s an example (5 mins) of cows integrated into a regenerative food production system. Note the almost closed loop nutrient cycling, water restoration, reliance on trees as fodder, and the happy cows.
the shift to small-scale, regenerative systems brings multiple benefits: economic resilience, food security, carbon sequestration, rebuilding soil and fertility, much lower inputs and near zero pollution, increased biodiversity, water conservation and protection, improved animal welfare.
the system in the video is not a system for mass producing export milk powder from stock units. It’s a system for producing local food in a way that restores land and is relatively self-sustaining.
if we transition to a relocalised economy, farmers will need a new way of making a living that isn’t export based. They also need a way out of the massive debt many are under. These are stark political realities standing between us and avoiding climate catastrophe.
there’s a general rule of thumb that regenerative farms are less productive per hectare when measuring output, but the economics are better because input costs are much lower than conventional farms. That’s without getting to counting the value of things like increased biodiversity, clean water ways, local employment.
different locations and climates have differently designed systems. Part of the point here is to design appropriate to the specific landbase.
Thanks for this post weka. Agriculture is one of any governments primary responsibilities and there is so much potential to lift our game.
there’s a general rule of thumb that regenerative farms are less productive per hectare when measuring output,
I don't see that as an insurmountable problem; while I totally support the ideas of the post around producing high quality, localised animal proteins, there are two factors that work in your favour.
One is that I believe the trend in our lifetime will be toward people eating less meat, but at a higher quality. The other is that the balance of our diet can come from plant based food production using methods like aquaponics, and greenhouse based vertical farming which inherently use far less land and water than traditional cropping methods.
The two strands complement each other very nicely, one allows us to manage arable landscapes intelligently and sustainably, the other can reliably feed tens of millions at huge scale without imposing a huge footprint on the natural world.
there’s a general rule of thumb that regenerative farms are less productive per hectare when measuring output…
That's the big hurdle, because the private sector operates on KPI-based thinking. That thinking is that success = maximising your key performance indicators, but the problem with measuring success based on a number is that people will naturally seek to maximise that number and broader measures of success will take a back seat. In the case of farming, productivity per hectare is the main KPI. I think the Greens understand there's more to success than maximising some numbers, but I'm not sure that Labour do and National certainly don't.
"But farming profitably through climate change is going to take far more than traditional measures such as extra reserves of feed, more water storage and irrigation and government handouts to alleviate drought-induced financial losses.
It will take big changes in farming systems to make farm ecosystems, paddock grasses, forage crops and animals much more drought resistant. The absolute key to this is rebuilding the health of soils as the keystone of regenerative farming practices."
So Rod Oram believes that supplementary feeding,water storage and irrigation is not profitable. He needs to go and talk to some FARMERS,rather than a few idealistic broken arses
I just cant see how we can transition back to small farms being able to support a family . Land prices are so high and costs are high ,and while meat seems expensive it would have to be much expensive to allow a mass move to the farm shown in your video.
The farm in the vid produces a range of foods, not just meat. The shift is away from seeing stock units = output measurements, and more towards the whole system and the benefits (economic and other) that it brings.
My personal view is that the govt should pay to free up land from debt that transitions to regenag. That land then becomes part of a different system i.e. it can't be sold for big capital gains.
The massive fields of grain (or soybeans) in the second photo of the OP are a large part of what enables the hellscape of the first photo to exists.
If there were a massive shift in worldwide diet away from beef, towards a diet with a higher proportion of its protein from vegetable sources or pork or chicken, the land area needed to produce protein for human consumption would reduce significantly. There would be less of photo 1 and less of photo 2.
Yes. I'm less convinced of how much a difference this would make*, but let's assume for argument's sake it does make an important difference. It still won't save us from CC, Peak Soil, the biodiversity crisis, the water crisis, food shortages and so on.
This is what I meant by dying a bit more slowly.
*in part because that big ag neoliberal capitalistic system will also be quite happy to use freed up land to grow biofuels. I'm not seeing anyone trying to regulate that yet because we are still largely in the phase where reducing GHG emissions is secondary to keeping the global economy in perpetual growth. We also tend to see GHG emissions as linear rather than as part of the wider systems that would include peak soil, biodiversity etc.
Hey Weka fantastic to see you putting out info about Regnerative Farming – I was in a state of despair about how few people in New Zealand know about it.
To put this in perspective Democratic candidates in the US have been using the phrase but I couldnt't find it on the NZ Green party's agriculture page last time I looked!
Great article and I really like the Geoff Lawson video – it's time the blame for things shifted away from cow farts etc to how the farming is done (+ China…world's biggest polluter, just saying).
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I wear my leather jacket like a great big hugRadiating charm - a living cloak of luckIt's the only concrete link with an absent friendIt's a symbol I can wear 'till we meet againOr it's a weight around my neck while the owner's freeBoth protector and reminder of mortalityIt's a ...
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National has appointed a new police commissioner. And he explicitly rejects policing by consent: Asked if he subscribed to policing by consent, he said he did not. “I don’t talk about policing by consent. I talk about trust and confidence, and it is fundamentally important that the police have ...
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In a manner of speakingI just want to sayThat I could never forget the wayYou told me everythingBy saying nothingOh, give me the wordsGive me the wordsThat tell me nothingOh, give me the wordsGive me the wordsThat tell me everythingSongwriter: Winston TongNext Tuesday, the subscription price for Nick’s Kōrero will ...
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And screamingAre we we are, are we we are the waitingAnd screamingAre we we are, are we we are the waitingForget me nots, second thoughts live in isolationHeads or tails and fairy tales in my mindAre we we are, are we we are the waiting unknownThe rage and love, the ...
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Kua hinga te manawa kairākau o Te Rua Tekau Ma Waru Tiwhatiwha te po! Kakarauru i te po! Ka rapuhia kei hea koe kua riro! Haere e te Ika a Whiro ki o tini hoa kua ngaro atu ki te Pō ...
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Delivered at Auckland Trade and Economic Policy School Good morning and thank you Deputy Vice Chancellor Lithander for your warm welcome and for inviting me to open Auckland Trade and Economic Policy School today. A Special thanks to the University of Auckland, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade and ...
Associate Education Minister David Seymour says that school attendance is continuing to rise. In Term 3 of 2024 51.3 per cent of students attended school regularly, an increase of 5.3 percentage points from 46 per cent in Term 3 of 2023. “This Government has prioritised student attendance and it is ...
Ensuring New Zealand is the best place in the world for children and young people is the vision at the heart of the Government’s new Child and Youth Strategy, Child Poverty Reduction Minister Louise Upston says. “Childhood represents a huge opportunity to set people on a positive path towards living ...
The Government is reinstating the trade of livestock exports by sea while ensuring the highest standards of animal welfare, says Associate Minister of Agriculture Andrew Hoggard.“The Government will introduce legislation changes to reinstate the trade, enhance oversight, and strengthen requirements for exporters to identify risks and manage the welfare of ...
Tēnā koutou katoa – it is a pleasure to be here today. I would like to begin by acknowledging the important leadership role you all play in ensuring a quality health system New Zealanders can trust. There is enormous clinical expertise in this room covering a wide range of disciplines. ...
Tēnā koutou katoa. Mr President, Excellencies, Delegates. New Zealand, and all nations represented here today, are already dealing with the impacts of climate change. Our households, businesses, and economies are bearing the costs of its effects. The choices we make now will shape the severity of these impacts for generations ...
The Government has released its second Quarterly Investment Report (QIR) which shows substantial work still to be done by agencies to improve investment reporting and meet the Government’s expectations, Infrastructure and Acting Finance Minister Chris Bishop says. “New Zealand has significant infrastructure and investment needs. The Government is determined to get ...
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts announced New Zealand will contribute NZ$10 million to the new Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage while at the annual United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP29) in Baku, Azerbaijan. “New Zealand is joining the global effort to address the significant challenge of responding to ...
The free ride for gangs is over when the clock strikes midnight tonight, with tough new laws officially coming into effect, Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith and Police Minister Mark Mitchell say. “Gang patches will no longer be able to be worn in public. To earn the right to wear a ...
The Government is welcoming the decision by the Local Government Funding Agency to increase access to financing tools for fast growing councils to support greater investment in critical infrastructure, Local Government Minister Simeon Brown says.“Communities across the country are facing an infrastructure deficit and significant population growth is projected in ...
The Government has revealed that over the past three years, the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) has spent an eyewatering $786 million of taxpayers’ money on road cones and temporary traffic management (TTM), Transport Minister Simeon Brown says.“When I became Minister, I was surprised to learn that that NZTA did ...
Legislation that will double the financial jurisdiction of the Disputes Tribunal from $30,000 to $60,000 has passed first reading in Parliament today, Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith. “We need to improve court timeliness and access to justice so that Kiwis and get on with their lives. Court delays affect everyone, the ...
Legislation that will specifically criminalise foreign interference and strengthen espionage offences has passed first reading in Parliament today, Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith says. “It is normal and appropriate for states to interact and work to influence one another. This encourages cooperation and can have mutually beneficial outcomes. “However, the reality ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has welcomed news that the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) Board has approved funding towards pre-implementation and early works on the State Highway 1 (SH1) Belfast to Pegasus Motorway and Woodend Bypass Road of National Significance (RoNS). “Reaching this significant milestone is a reflection of our Government’s ...
Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says findings from the annual Health Survey highlight the need to continue driving better health outcomes for New Zealanders. The New Zealand Health Survey is an annual snapshot of key metrics measured from July 2023 – July 2024. Findings released this morning include: In 2023/24, ...
A renewed effort to get people to quit smoking will build on what has worked to date and target the groups who most need support, Associate Health Minister Casey Costello said today. “The latest New Zealand Health Survey results show the daily smoking rate at 6.9 per cent and we ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters has announced four new diplomatic appointments. “Our diplomats play an important role in ensuring New Zealand’s interests are maintained and enhanced across the world,” Mr Peters says. “It is a pleasure to announce the appointment of these senior diplomats from the Ministry of Foreign ...
Regulation Minister David Seymour has today announced the next steps in the Government’s plan improve the quality of regulation by opening consultation on a proposed Regulatory Standards Bill. “New Zealand's low wages can be blamed on low productivity, and low productivity can be blamed on poor regulation,” says Mr Seymour. ...
Minister for Regulation David Seymour has today announced that the Ministry for Regulation’s Red Tape Tipline is now live. “We want to hear about your red tape horror stories. From today, New Zealanders will have a say on how they are regulated through an online portal,” says Mr Seymour. The ...
The Minister for Youth Matt Doocey has today announced the eleventh Youth Parliament will be taking place in 2025. “Youth Parliament offers a unique youth development opportunity to young people from across New Zealand to experience the political process and learn about how government works,” says Mr Doocey. “The two-day ...
After nearly a year in Government, Kiwis have seen significant change across law and order with promising early results shown across some Police statistics, says Police Minister Mark Mitchell. “In August 2023, I told New Zealanders that if they had not started to see a change in public safety within ...
With the launch of Fraud Awareness Week, the Government is committing to new coordination efforts across industry and government to combat online scams, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly says. “Online financial scams are a growing problem for New Zealand. New data released today shows that Kiwis lost nearly ...
Minister for Children Karen Chhour will consider the recommendations made by the Social Services and Community Committee in its report back to Parliament on the Oranga Tamariki (Repeal of Section 7AA) Amendment Bill. “I want to thank the people who made submissions and those who appeared before the committee in ...
Defence Minister Judith Collins will this week attend the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Defence Ministers’ Meeting-Plus in Vientiane, Laos. “We need to take every opportunity to engage with our international partners, given the increasingly unstable geo-political situation,” Ms Collins says. “New Zealand has a long-standing commitment to this ...
The Minister for the Prevention of Family and Sexual Violence, Karen Chhour, was on hand to wish riders well at the start of the North Island leg of the White Ribbon Ride in Whakatāne this morning. The ride helps mark the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, ...
Construction on the next stage of the SH1 Papakura to Drury project will begin early next month, with the contract for works awarded to Fulton Hogan, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. "SH1 Papakura to Drury is a key project that will drive economic growth and productivity, reduce congestion, and enable people ...
Trade and Agriculture Minister Todd McClay has signed a pioneering trade agreement that prioritises New Zealand’s sustainable exports at a ceremony during APEC in Peru today. “The Agreement on Trade and Sustainability (ACCTS), between Costa Rica, Iceland, and Switzerland was concluded in July of this year and opens up significant ...
Five new Aquaculture Settlement Areas will help ensure Ngāi Tahu shares in the opportunities aquaculture offers for Southland’s economy, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. “The Aquaculture Settlement Areas (ASAs) I’m announcing today set aside space so the Crown and Ngāi Tahu can assess their potential for aquaculture development. ...
The terms of reference for a review of the performance of the electricity market have been released. The review, initiated by the Coalition Government during the power crisis in winter will look at whether current regulations and market design support economic growth and access to reliable and affordable electricity, Energy Minister ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Flora Hui, Research Fellow, Centre for Eye Research Australia and Honorary Fellow, Department of Surgery (Ophthalmology), The University of Melbourne IoanaB/Shutterstock The United States Food and Drug Administration has just approved the first-ever clinical trial that uses CRISPR-Cas13 RNA editing. Its ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Katie Lee, PhD Candidate, Dermatology Research Centre, The University of Queensland Karolina Grabowska/Pexels Summer is nearly here. But rather than getting out the sunscreen, some TikTokers are urging followers to chuck it out and go sunscreen-free. They claim it’s healthier ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Keller Kopf, Senior Lecturer in Ecology, Charles Darwin University Laxmikant Ameenagad, Shutterstock In humans and other animals, ageing is generally associated with a decline in biological function. But scientists are now discovering older animals perform vital roles in populations and ecosystems. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Matej Lipar, Adjunct Research Fellow, School of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Curtin University Author provided/Google Earth Earlier this year, a caver was poring over satellite images of the Nullarbor Plain when he came across something unexpected: an enormous, mysterious scar etched ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Treena Clark, Chancellor’s Indigenous Research Fellow, Faculty of Design, Architecture and Building, University of Technology Sydney Once located 250 metres to the east of the Art Gallery of South Australia, the grand beaux-arts style Jubilee Exhibition Building was constructed to house the ...
Treasury likely to downgrade economic forecast while Chris Bishop says the government won’t be ‘a slave to a surplus’, writes Anna Rawhiti-Connell in this extract from The Bulletin. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign up here. Recession will be deeper and last longer — Treasury At a recent Spinoff ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephanie Gomes-Ng, Senior Lecturer of Psychology, Auckland University of Technology Getty Images Former New Zealand prime minister John Key has three white rabbits painted on his helicopter, a nod to his “massively superstitious” habit of repeating “white rabbits” three times at ...
Labour claims Government is ‘cherry-picking’ smoking trends data to hide decade-first increase in daily smokers The post Smoke and mirrors in tobacco debate appeared first on Newsroom. ...
There is plenty yet to play out, but the next election is at this rate shaping up as trio versus trio, writes Toby Manhire.A subplot of this week’s historic hīkoi mō te Tiriti has been the sight of the three opposition parties presenting a unified front. Te Pāti Māori ...
From the low lows of abandon empires to the high highs of a mall done just right.This is the second in the Malls of New Zealand series, where we rank the malls in major centres. Next week: Wellington.A note from the editor: This is the hardest ranking we’ve ...
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Thanks for this post weka. Agriculture is one of any governments primary responsibilities and there is so much potential to lift our game.
there’s a general rule of thumb that regenerative farms are less productive per hectare when measuring output,
I don't see that as an insurmountable problem; while I totally support the ideas of the post around producing high quality, localised animal proteins, there are two factors that work in your favour.
One is that I believe the trend in our lifetime will be toward people eating less meat, but at a higher quality. The other is that the balance of our diet can come from plant based food production using methods like aquaponics, and greenhouse based vertical farming which inherently use far less land and water than traditional cropping methods.
The two strands complement each other very nicely, one allows us to manage arable landscapes intelligently and sustainably, the other can reliably feed tens of millions at huge scale without imposing a huge footprint on the natural world.
Thanks for this post, that video was awesome.
there’s a general rule of thumb that regenerative farms are less productive per hectare when measuring output…
That's the big hurdle, because the private sector operates on KPI-based thinking. That thinking is that success = maximising your key performance indicators, but the problem with measuring success based on a number is that people will naturally seek to maximise that number and broader measures of success will take a back seat. In the case of farming, productivity per hectare is the main KPI. I think the Greens understand there's more to success than maximising some numbers, but I'm not sure that Labour do and National certainly don't.
So they only measure out put rather than whether their books balance? What's just weird.
But lol, this is *exactly the difference between regenag and conventional/industrial farming on a number of levels.
Rod Oram appears to be having similar thoughts.
"But farming profitably through climate change is going to take far more than traditional measures such as extra reserves of feed, more water storage and irrigation and government handouts to alleviate drought-induced financial losses.
It will take big changes in farming systems to make farm ecosystems, paddock grasses, forage crops and animals much more drought resistant. The absolute key to this is rebuilding the health of soils as the keystone of regenerative farming practices."
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/2020/03/01/1059732/farming-when-drought-is-the-new-normal
So Rod Oram believes that supplementary feeding,water storage and irrigation is not profitable. He needs to go and talk to some FARMERS,rather than a few idealistic broken arses
I just cant see how we can transition back to small farms being able to support a family . Land prices are so high and costs are high ,and while meat seems expensive it would have to be much expensive to allow a mass move to the farm shown in your video.
The farm in the vid produces a range of foods, not just meat. The shift is away from seeing stock units = output measurements, and more towards the whole system and the benefits (economic and other) that it brings.
My personal view is that the govt should pay to free up land from debt that transitions to regenag. That land then becomes part of a different system i.e. it can't be sold for big capital gains.
The massive fields of grain (or soybeans) in the second photo of the OP are a large part of what enables the hellscape of the first photo to exists.
If there were a massive shift in worldwide diet away from beef, towards a diet with a higher proportion of its protein from vegetable sources or pork or chicken, the land area needed to produce protein for human consumption would reduce significantly. There would be less of photo 1 and less of photo 2.
Yes. I'm less convinced of how much a difference this would make*, but let's assume for argument's sake it does make an important difference. It still won't save us from CC, Peak Soil, the biodiversity crisis, the water crisis, food shortages and so on.
This is what I meant by dying a bit more slowly.
*in part because that big ag neoliberal capitalistic system will also be quite happy to use freed up land to grow biofuels. I'm not seeing anyone trying to regulate that yet because we are still largely in the phase where reducing GHG emissions is secondary to keeping the global economy in perpetual growth. We also tend to see GHG emissions as linear rather than as part of the wider systems that would include peak soil, biodiversity etc.
Hey Weka fantastic to see you putting out info about Regnerative Farming – I was in a state of despair about how few people in New Zealand know about it.
To put this in perspective Democratic candidates in the US have been using the phrase but I couldnt't find it on the NZ Green party's agriculture page last time I looked!
Great article and I really like the Geoff Lawson video – it's time the blame for things shifted away from cow farts etc to how the farming is done (+ China…world's biggest polluter, just saying).