Another day in John Key’s neo-liberal nightmare.
We have become a cruel, ugly and selfish nation under his wretched leadership.
‘Homeless people are finding themselves thousands of dollars in debt to Work and Income (Winz) for money loaned to them to stay in motels.
Winz will loan people money to rent out a motel room as emergency housing, when there is nowhere else to put them.
People then have to repay the debt, and many say that is just not possible.
Earlier this week, when asked what people living in cars or garages should do, Prime Minister John Key had a simple reply.
“My really strong advice is to go and see Work and Income,” he said, “and we’ll see what we can do, because I think people very often don’t understand what’s available to them.
“My experience with Work and Income is they do their very best to support people in those situations, especially when children are involved.”
He was talking to people like Nicole.
That is just horrible, infact I’m struggling to find the words to describe how shit that is, 👿 Are the powers that be really just gutter trash loan sharks.. Ashamed of my country.
Loan sharks is an excellent description. The PM sends you to WINZ, WINZ sends you to a motel room you could never afford, and then WINZ cuts your benefit to repay the motel bill.
Labour, Greens, NZ First, Maori party:
Your job is to convince the public that Key, Anne Tolley, and Paula Bennett are callous vultures. Do it now!
Only people benefiting from this set up are the moteliers. I am starting to picture signs up at every second motel in Auckland with “We do WINZ quotes” signs at the door, similar to what happens in the US, where what passes for their welfare system supports an industry of small business owners who do things like cash welfare cheques, buy food stamps, etc.
War is Peace,
There is no housing crisis
Freedom is Slavery
Selling land to overseas buyers is good
Ignorance is Strength
The dairy industry is strong
“Believe us……… John Key has everything under control
Go back to sleep New Zealand
John Key has everything under control
Go back to sleep New Zealand
John Key has everything under control
Go back to sleep New Zealand
John Key has everything under control
Go back to sleep New Zealand
John Key has everything under control
Tony Veitch (not the partner-bashing 3rd rate broadcaster) 2.1
As shown here on a clip I hadn’t seen. Perhaps it should be called a lullaby for the corrupt, featuring john key telling us in all sincerity that “I don’t recall.”
In order for a client to be considered for an Advance Payment of Benefit they must be able to identify a particular immediate need for an essential item or service.
In determining if a particular immediate need exists, consider:
the effect on the client and partner or dependent children (if any) if the need is not met
when that effect might be expected to impact on that or those persons
the client’s ability to meet the need from his or her own resources
the assistance that is or might be available to the client from other sources or other Extra Help from Work and Income that may be available to the client to meet the particular immediate need
the client’s existing level of debt, and whether the rate of repayment of the proposed Advance of Benefit would be manageable considering:
whether the reduction of the amount of benefit payable will leave enough for the client’s living expenses and any other debt repayments and
the likelihood it would cause the client to seek further advances or other Extra Help
whether the client is likely to continue to be in receipt of the benefit for the period over which the Advance would be repayable and
any other matters put forward by the client to justify the advance
If the client meets all qualifications, they may be able to receive a Special Needs Grant for an item or service that is not specified if:
special circumstances exist and
they and/or their family would suffer serious hardship without the item or service
If you need help deciding whether to pay an emergency Special Needs Grant in these cases contact Helpline.
Payment
Unless exceptional circumstances exist, the maximum amount payable towards another emergency grant is $500.
A Special Needs Grant for other emergency grants may be recoverable or non-recoverable. To help you decide whether the Special Needs Grant should be repaid, consider:
the purpose of the grant
the nature of the needs
whether it would be fair in regards to other clients to require payment and
the effect on the client if they were required to repay the Special Needs Grant
You mean the SPLC report on its own survey containing clear (and no doubt significant) self selection bias, and their attempt to put it forward as an indicative (eg typical) sample of american schools?
As my daughter commented…….I wonder where John Key would be if his government policies re housing were in place when his mother applied for state housing……………he has certainly distanced himself from his beginnings, but ONLY thanks to other people giving him a hand up in hard times, he is despicable.
Key’s schmoozing the people (when getting the Leader of National Party) stage….. So good GS I had to post a bit more of the article….
“I think all New Zealanders would agree that the security, happiness and welfare of their family, which is also dependent on the security and welfare of their community and country, is the most precious thing to them.
“There will always be a social welfare system in New Zealand because you can measure a society by how it looks after its most vulnerable. Once I was one of them. I will never turn my back on that.”
re. whataguy. please watch clip at 2.1.1.1 but comes with x rated cert. for hideousness, so be warned (melody and singer’s voice are quite lovely in contrast to the subject matter though.)
And yes I can become totally deranged by this sorry specimen of a human being in the video.
Where would the likes of Key & Bennett be without the ‘help’ the state afforded them. $1300 a week to stay at an ’emergency home’ that has to be paid back by beneficiaries receiving less than half that a week, how does that work? Reminds me of the U.S. practise of prisoners having to pay for their incarceration then jail them & charge them again when they cannot pay…How are people expected to get out of these traps!
But when Twyford helped design Labour’s “Chinese sounding last names” campaign last year, he distinctly failed to widen the media framing to include buyers from Europe, North America, South Africa, Australia, UK and Ireland, instead preferring to underline the Chinese part of the problem.
Yes that was wrong, but at that moment in time they were right, disregarding those jacked up stat’s ,and of coarse labour did it too, New migrants overwhelmingly vote for the gov’t that let them in, so to speak.
The fifth Labour administration glowed for awhile with their intake. I do agree however their are a lot of white faces steering back at a more multi cultured mob of capitalists running the show now. 👿
Yeah, there’s a reason for that which basically comes down to Smith is the most common name in the English speaking world. Because of the lack of data on who’s buying houses it was only through focussing on uncommon names that anyone could have got an idea of the discrepancy between onshore buyers and offshore buyers.
It really wasn’t racist and it doesn’t take away from the fact that other nationalities are buying up our housing as well. It was simply the only way to show that offshore buyers are a large part of the problem. Unfortunately they didn’t then say that they’re going to outright ban offshore ownership.
so how come Twyford never once said: our data covers Chinese last names only, but to be clear, any foreign buyer regardless of nationality contributes to the problem.
Right in the fucken bolded part. I believe that there was other occasions as well where he was even more explicit.
I know you don’t want to believe it but it was done the way it was done because of the lack of data. That’s it, nothing less and nothing more. You and many others jumped on the RWNJ bandwagon and read more into it than was there.
LOL mate, and I guess the fact that the Labour caucus has not got a single Chinese, East Asian or South Asian/Indian MP (that’s a super region with about 3.5B people) is pure happenstance as well.
Whatever, Labour fucked themselves with “Chinese sounding last names” – it made the party of racial tolerance and ethnic diversity look and sound like the shallow political opportunists that they have become.
The icing on the cake for me was that this occurred just as Little and Labour were starting to poll over 30%. But after the Chinese sounding last names saga, they sank hard and never recovered, as the electorate saw through their hypocrisy, and decided to sit them on the 26% to 28% mark.
After all, Auckland housing became internationally ranked as “severely unaffordable” under Helen Clark’s reign.
You and many others jumped on the RWNJ bandwagon and read more into it than was there.
Why don’t you go away and find some entitled middle class white people to explain to me what racism from the political elite looks and sounds like, cause clearly I have no idea.
Plenty on ‘the left’ have a huge blind spot when it comes to their xenophobia and/or racism. And, to be fair, plenty on ‘the left’ have other, huge blind spots too.
Twyford and those who defend that shit…you’re wasting your breath CV. Them’s is of the left and ipso facto, can’t be racist or xenophobic.
To be honest, it’s not the racism overt or discrete which worries me; especially given that the history of Chinese in NZ is replete with examples of official and unofficial racism. (Let alone what has happened in countries like Fiji, Australia, Malaysia, etc.)
It’s how low the Labour Party – the supposedly liberal broad church which values ethnic diversity and racial harmony – has collapsed in its search for a brief poll bump.
And the stupidity of some supposedly politically astute people in thinking that NZ Chinese like myself, Raybon Kan, Keith Ng, Tze Ming Mok and others, shouldn’t exercise our agency and push right back.
“It’s how low the Labour Party – the supposedly liberal broad church which values ethnic diversity and racial harmony – has collapsed in its search for a brief poll bump.”
You are surprised? how many examples of poor decision making have we seen from Labour since Clark was ousted?….they have been rudderless since.
don’t know the numbers (suspect no one does) but think its pretty safe bet to say that Queenstown’s (and central in general) property inflation has been driven by foreign investment, and little of that would be Chinese in origin….unrestricted access for the worlds money looking for a home was always going to be problematic in a low wage economy like NZ.
I have very little time for Shamubeel Eeaqub, after hearing him in person at a council meeting in Auckland (while he was living in Wellington) make excuse after excuse for why we should not care about rising housing costs.
“If people can’t buy – they can rent” was his theme.
There were several pertinent questions from the audience that he replied to by avoiding the question.
His current mode is more concerned, but that is because he is now an Aucklander. But he is still very restrained in what housing solutions are available, and I have not seen him show meaningful effective solutions for those whose housing has hit crisis mode.
I really don’t understand why he is trotted out so often as an economic spokesperson.
I’ve had trouble warming to Shamubeel Eeqaub, despite his apparent popularity. I recall during the GFC years he failed to criticise the government over it’s inaction on economic resilience and assistance to those struggling – they carried on with a BAU approach.
Rather Shamubeel Eequab referred to the individual being responsible for their problems and suggested people make cut backs in their luxury spending without realising people weren’t spending on luxuries, as they were losing jobs, couldn’t find adequate affordable housing, and the places that once supplied those luxuries, like a meal out, where closing down anyway.
I remember him saying something, “do allow your self the occasional treat. Mrs Eeqaub splashes out on a new nail polish now and then”. It was so very patronising and an out of touch statement.
Maybe’s he’s more on to it now days. I don’t know.
PS: re the “if you can’t afford to buy you can rent” theme. That’s fairly redundant. Looking at the rental increases lately, some of them are the up at the same price as paying off a hefty mortgage. The average weekly rental of a not very spectacular 3 bdr in Wellington is now nearly the same as we pay on our massive mortgage.
I had an argument with him on Twitter a few months back when he came up with the idea that all of Auckland’s golf courses be turned into housing. It was a purely ‘economic’ argument that he made along the lines of: Golf courses are large and expensive to maintain and only the rich use them but if we turned them into housing we’d both decrease council spending on them and increase ratepayers and so be able to reduce rates.
He obviously did not understand that a city actually needs the large green spaces in them. Sure, turn them into parks that everyone can enjoy rather than just a bunch of people swinging clubs but keep the bloody things.
To me his recent ‘transformation’ into a caring economist is almost subconscious. Subconsciously he’s realised that the economics he was taught at university and which has made him quite well off doesn’t work but he’s still clinging on to it. He’s got a few more years to go to full conscious realisation and he may never get there.
PS: re the “if you can’t afford to buy you can rent” theme. That’s fairly redundant.
Actually, it’s pretty close to being fraudulent. As a renter you’re paying off someone’s mortgage and their profit.
It’s lazy thinking when people see green space and equate it with “housing problem solved”. They don’t consider the consequences of loss of green space, environmentally and socially or see housing accessibility being tied to other factors such as market regulation, taxation regulation or stagnant wages, social issues around proximity to work, transport and business hubs and the high cost of living.
Interesting observation of S.E’s apparent evolution into a more compassionate approach towards economics.
“He obviously did not understand that a city actually needs the large green spaces in them.”
much like his “zombie towns” thing – where he utterly failed to note that many of them are a shorter drive to a big center than the average AK commute, and that people who live there either create their own employment or… commute
Be interested to hear if anyone challenges Twyford for backing sprawl today, and asks him who will pay for the increased infrastructure it demands compared with density.
In all the discussions around the environment, we hardly or if at all talk about animal farming. In all the discussions around water, animal farming is tagged on, but not really challenged.
To all the farmers who produce fruits, vegetables, pulses and grains. Just remember you are the righteous ones, and I thank you for everything you do.
Cowspiracy is a vegan propaganda film with poor references. There are serious issues with how we farm animals, including animal welfare, resource use and pollution issues. Cowspiracy isn’t a good source of information in that debate.
It’s essentially a documentary about making a documentary on corporate farming.
The promo video is defiantly propaganda, but all such trailers are. Good on them about being honest about their vegan view point.
The movie itself, is more of a interesting ride, with the NGO and state sector being exposed to corporate compliance. Also the difficulty in filming and asking hard questions about the industry. So if that propaganda, so be it.
Greenplease are not happy for sure. They come across as looking weak, money grubbing, and dithers. I’ve been saying for years them and their friends at the World Wide Fund for Nature are corporate lackeys. Look at the T-TIP grand expose from greenplease, decidedly a non-event. They played right into corporate hands.
So what exactly is the problem about talking about the fact animal farming, at least in this country, has virtually destroyed our water quality? Too soon?
Nothing. That’s a daft question tbh adam. It’s not like the vegans are the only people seriously concerned, or taking action.
The problem with the film Cowspiracy is that it’s core thesis is that being vegan is better than eating meat and dairy. That’s patently ideological and it skews everything else they present. People need to eat what is local, and if that is small amounts of meat then that’s actuall fine. Most vegans eat highly processed, industrial foods are also hugely problematic for the planet including in terms of CC. I have absolutlely no problem with the industrialised world being told to eat less meat and dairy. But when the ideology is stop eating those foods no matter what, you end up getting a worse than useless message. If addressing CC and other urgent environmental issues was about finding substitutes so we can carry on with our excessive lifestyles, then going vegan might make some kind of sense in terms of possibly mitigating damage. But it’s a nonesense in terms of shifting societies to actual sustainability. There is nothing sustainable about most vegan diets.
I thought the stuff with Greenpeace as obviously a set up, but they’re big people they can handle it. Much more interesting to me was the reviews I read from the regenerative agriculture people, the people who are actually practicing what they preach. This is where it came out that the references Cowspiracy were using were poor and/or skewed.
I’ve critiqued it before. There are far better ways to be addressing Western consumption,
There’s nothing wrong with dairy farming, it’s how we’re doing it. Cowspiracy is a fundamentalist vegan film that doesn’t support its assertions very well. It also seems to be comparing industrial stock farming with industrial agriculture and deciding that industrial agriculture is best. Both are highly polluting and destroy ecologies. Swapping one for the other out of ideological concerns just creates different problems, what we need to do instead is make all farming sustainable and regenerative. (that should probably read horticulture)
Heard this observation being made the other day in a podcast interview of a vegan turned hunter. He pointed out that although there are definitely cultures that have thrived on an intergenerational vegetarian diet, he wasn’t aware of a single one that had based its diet on veganism.
And there’s also the fact that veganism can and often does cause more environmental degradation that other options.
The problem with the film Cowspiracy is that it’s core thesis is that being vegan is better than eating meat
I love eating meat but even I have to admit that the land required to raise a just a handful of cows would sustainably provide all the vegetable based nutrition needed for 50 or 100 families.
That depends entirely on what you are growing and where. If you look at protein alone, the amount of plant protein needed to sustain a population intergenerationally is the first big challenge. It’s all very well for 20 something men to go vegan, but it’s much harder through pregnancy, birth and breast feeding, which is why there are not cultures that do it. You might get a few women able to do that, but all women over subsequent generations, it’s just really hard. And much much harder in the power down when you don’t have beans and nuts being shipped to you from all over the world.
The most productive agriculture with the least impact I know utilises animals into polyculture (some traditional Chinese systems are probably some of the most sustainable on the planet for dense populations and were done for thousands of years). Monocropping wheat, soy, sheep or dairy cows is always going to be wrong. More sustainable cultures eat less meat, but they still eat some and they eat the whole animal (not just the meat). We are so far from being efficient it’s not funny.
the land required to raise a just a handful of cows would sustainably provide all the vegetable based nutrition needed for 50 or 100 families.
If you grow grain to feed cows with like some kind of idiot, then sure. If you grow cows by feeding them grass, like we did up until recently, then no, that’s not true at all. The fact that the world has an over-supply of idiots feeding grain to cows is a problem with idiots, not animal farming per se.
I agree, Especially on the way we are farming. What the point of farming on a industrial level, when industrial farming is the problem.
I’m not a vegan, nor do I support it. As it stands, it will just mean swapping one corporate master for another. So at some point, we collectively need to ask what is best practice? I think you ask that.
But my initial point was not cowspiracy by the way, even though they are the people being talked to, in the “Days of Revolt” video. It’s about the fact the corporate dominance is everywhere. And in food, it has been very insidious problem. It is just at the point of animal farming, we can see how much of a problem it has become. And how one aspect of industrial farming, is feeding another part of industrial farming and the population has no input to this debate.
Even farmers themselves are being deprived of participating in that debate.
To me it looks like the same old shit as all the other fucked up things we are doing. Greed and selfishness and disconnection.
One of the biggest challenges in NZ is how farmers who want to change can do so and still have a viable business. It looks to me like most are tied into systems that are very hard to get out of, esp if they have big debt.
Good on them about being honest about their vegan view point.
I’ve no problem with someone following a vegan diet – hell, I was vegan for some years. Do you watch ‘Game of Thrones’ and know the character ‘Sparrow’? That’s how far too many vegans approach the world – as holier than thou, judgmental arseholes.
(Apologies for making a reference to a piece of pop culture that not everyone will be able to pick up on)
Effectively you do have a problem with vegans then, because the ones that don’t peddle bullshit about their impact on the planet are few and far between.
Know how there was a system in balance that included (I don’t know) hundreds of millions upon hundreds of millions of ruminants? The problem is CO2 from fossil fuel has knocked that equilibrium to hell in a handbasket.
That’s not to suggest that land use isn’t a contributory factor now that we’ve shafted everything, but really…
Worth remembering that the “system in balance” you refer to included no more than ~0.5B population for all of human history except the last 500-600 years.
Way back in 2006 the UN had this to say about the issue:
9 November 2006 – Cattle-rearing generates more global warming greenhouse gases, as measured in CO2 equivalent, than transportation…
“Livestock are one of the most significant contributors to today’s most serious environmental problems,” senior UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) official Henning Steinfeld said…
When emissions from land use and land use change are included, the livestock sector accounts for 9 per cent of CO2 deriving from human-related activities, but produces a much larger share of even more harmful greenhouse gases. It generates 65 per cent of human-related nitrous oxide, which has 296 times the Global Warming Potential (GWP) of CO2. Most of this comes from manure.
And it accounts for respectively 37 per cent of all human-induced methane (23 times as warming as CO2), which is largely produced by the digestive system of ruminants…
How much CO2e do you think the huge herds of wilderbeast, buffalo and what not produced? I don’t know if there are more cows now than there ever was wild herds, but the point remains that it’s fossil related CO2 that has destroyed the equilibrium.
And again. I’m not suggesting that land use, with all the accompanying destruction of eco-systems that probably dealt with shit and what not n a natural environment, isn’t a problem.
Interestingly the great plains (now the dustbowl) were built and sustained by bison. Annually they consumed a small portion of growth and trampled the rest into the ground, causing an increase in water retention and fertility the next years crop was corrospondingly bigger and the cycle continued untill the topsoil (mostly made of carbon) was metres deep representing many gazillion of tons of carbon retained.
the most important fact from this story is that it is far more effective and quicker to capture carbon by allowing “weeds” and incorporating them into the soil than any other scheme so far devised. And so doing actually increases the productive capacity of land for food. (Once we let go of plow, poison , spray, fertilise, monoculture as “the only way to make enought food”)
Properly organised humans have the ability to sequester shitloads of carbon quite quickly and live better lives for it.
There is nothing (except interest payments) to stop a dairy farmer from managing their cows in a manner analagous to the bison of the great plains, doing the science, claiming the carbon credits, improving land and water quality, and… producing milk and meat.
It would be “uneconomic” but that would seem to be the only downside!
Am completely on board re that kind of farming. A few caveats though. I’ve seen some big claims re amounts of carbon sequestered but not much actual evidence yet. The evidence is there for building soil, but not so much for quantities of carbon captured.
I really hope it doesn’t get tied into carbon credits. We need sustainable economics too.
Do you think that big plains system would work for dairying? I’ve seen it for cattle, but not animals that need to be brought in and milked every day or twice a day. There is something problematic about all that foot traffic anyway, and it doesn’t mimic the natural systems which were cyclical over the year and perennial grass/weed growth rates.
thats why i claimed “gazillions” of tons 🙂 but notwithstanding that I am quietly confident in claiming 1 that the topsoil of the great plains was meters deep and 2 that it was predominatly made of carbon. I dont actually know of studies of “soil sequesture of carbon” any links appreciated.
An important side issue that should not be overlooked is water retention and silt retention , if you have a highly structured soil composed of organic material “meters deep” you can dump a significant part of a meter of water and retain most of it and almost all of any silt and nutrients in that water, water being the number one limiter/enabler of plant growth, the potential for increased production in areas of seasonally uneaven precipitation (most places!) is huge! obviously this is important in terms of resiliancy to climate change events.
As for dairying consider that 1 trampling (up to a point) is essential to the process and 2 maby milking dosnt have to be centralised to the extent that it is now.
We’ve had quite a few conversations in the past about this. I’ve looked for the numbers on sequestration, there is some research being done but nothing definitive yet. My own view is that it doesn’t matter what the research says because we should be transitioning to these kinds of agriculture anyway. And we still need to reduce emissions.
I’ve seen something recently on reforesation, esp regenerating forest and how much carbon it sequesters. Thinking now seems to be changing on this and it’s being seen as meaningful in terms of quantity. I’ll see if I can find a link.
Totally with you on soil and water too (been banging away at the one here too, esp everytime the media starts talking about drought).
Re dairying, yes trampling is part of the process but not in a confined area in a confined space of time. You may be right and that it would work with smaller, localised farms. A house cow or 3 in every neighbourhood too 😉 Can’t do industrial, export dairy though.
From my perspective, the corporate industrial farming model is a major contributor to CO2 emissions. Everything in the chain from production to delivery. As Rosie said below, the fact they think it economic to ship oats half way around the world is just madness, and a waste of resources.
So, prioritise making our energy system fossil free. We have to do that right now anyway regardless of any land use issue. That knocks a lump out of the emissions you’re attaching to ag.
Do that and it doesn’t matter a toss if somebody wants to transport oats half way around the world. Also, do that and market economics may no longer be viable – no big deal to my mind and probably a very good side effect of doing the right thing 😉
Meanwhile and in concert…
Radically reconfigure agriculture – replace the industrial models with more sane methods and systems.
Cows in NZ? Do we even need 10% of the numbers we have? Whatever, time to get our shit together. I think everyone commenting on this is on the same page, yes?
“Do that and it doesn’t matter a toss if somebody wants to transport oats half way around the world.”
I think it does matter. From a CC perspective, we have to reduce everything we can, and given there will be some who won’t and that we’re already very late to the party, then adopting eat local is one of the easiest ways we can of shifting to a low carbon economy. Even if we transition shipping to sail instead of diesel, there are still all the other miles to and from port (in NZ food miles within the country are worse than the ones to get food to NZ from overseas).
It’s also a fundamental of sustainability. I think the case can be made for shipping some things (coffee, spices, medicines, rare materials), but in general the whole shipping economy is inherently unsustainable. What is the carbon and other environmental cost of manufacturing a freight liner? And all the other industry that has to exist around that? I’m also wondering if the economics don’t stack up in the same way as with airlines (the more we use them the more airports they keep building and thus the necessity to sell more tickets etc).
imo the whole issue is primarily one of overpopulation of the human race…this is where we should start
…meat eating did not used to be a problem
1.) …countries, cultures and religions( which call for over- population eg male dominated Catholic Church) …which overpopulate must be called to account ( we all know which countries are overpopulated )
( Western countries have not increased their populations for some time and in fact many are decreasing in population…well- educated women with equal opportunities for education and jobs do not over-breed…overpopulation is a feminist issue)
2.) …world economics and capitalist values must have a different idea of what constitutes quality of life and morality …it isnt consumerist wealth and it isnt growth at all costs
3.) the values of the planet and sustainability of the planet Earth /Gaia/ Papatuanuku must be paramount
( we must eat and live frugally…rampant consumerism should be frowned upon…animal rights like human rights, indigenous peoples’ rights , and women’s rights to control their lives and reproduction must be paramount)
NZ has specialised in selling animal products to people who don’t need them. We have our own set of culpabilities.
And we probably have more people that we can sustain too. Population is an issue for industrialised countries. NZ is currently using something lke 2.5 x the resources available.
In terms of fossil related CO2, if our energy system is fossil free – that includes all transport – it really doesn’t matter. You wanna sail or float whatever where-ever? Fine. Seriously.
As the rest of my comment above suggests, given the other changes that we have to make at the same time, and given the likely effect on the global market economy of all the changes, the chances are no-one will want to.
What about the righteous farmers who produce fruit, vegetables, pulses and grains and then sell these as animal feed to other farmers. Are they still righteous?
If all else fails go for the scear debate? And you said earlier that the video was nothing more than propaganda – Then weka I’m calling you for doing the same. Sheesh, talk about spin. Who said, not to grow local, it’s not corporate support going on here.
This is anti-corporate, but sure spin it away to some sort of what ever it is you are doing.
Who, in the video was defending one aspect of the corporate sector verse another? Please any point in the video? It was having go at this one aspect of farming, which people rush to defend, by any means necessary it seems…
Adam – go through a typical, thoughtful vegan diet. Strip out everything that was grown overseas using industrial monoculture practices, or processed using highly industrial processes and son on. What’s left? A viable diet? I don’t think so.
And balance up various alternatives, with regards environmental impact, both within and beyond the limits of veganism.
Y’know, things like potatoes versus rice or soy versus wild meat…
My argument was around the original video, and the corporate take over of the food chain. As I said above, swapping one corporate overlord for another based on diet, is in my eyes – stupidity of the highest order.
And no I don’t support a vegan diet. A vegan meal or two a week be a nice change. Or vegetarian meals two or three times a week. Affordable fruit and veggies, rather than them being inflated by corporate industrial farming of animals – would be nice as well.
On corporate take-over of the food chain – you been aware of the apparently successful lobbying by Fonterra these past few years to kill off farmgate sales? The legislation clamping down on small, possibly quite ‘on to it’, possibly organic producers of dairy, is getting ridiculously restrictive.
Last I heard (a few weeks back) was that, whereas some delivery to pick-up point had been allowed if the milk was placed in some cooler or fridge arrangement, new legislation was knocking that on the head. Think about this. It’s only a few years back that ‘industrial’ milk was dropped on peoples’ doorsteps in the middle of the afternoon.
Go back over the last few years and you’ll find a smattering of stories about the supposed health dangers of consuming dairy from those same small producers.
Ah monopoly, the fundamental flaw no capitalist is willing to admit.
Just another example of corporate madness. Yes I’m aware.
Here an odd story which may make you mad. A person I know makes cheese at home, they would get on their motorcycle and go down country to get farm fresh organic milk from the gate.
They last time they did this, they were told, they could not buy the milk as they were on a motorcycle. Something about a local by-law, or some such.
Hmmm, is that the raw milk issue? Or are you saying that the laws have changed around pasteurised milk sales too?
The previous law said you could sell 5 (or 8?) litres of raw milk per person per day from the gate. You couldn’t transport it, and you couldn’t make products from it and sell them. Lots of buying and selling was being done under the radar as people found ways around that.
The new laws are better and worse, after a long consulation process (by MAF I think). It’s now easier to sell raw milk (and buy it). But producers have to prove they have safe practices, and that costs them (they have to have a plan and do testing I think). Hard on really small producers, but if we want to be shipping raw milk it’s essential. Raw milk can contain pathogens that can make humans very sick. That’s why we have pastuerisation.
And yeah, there is some hooha about where and when raw milk can be sold and buyers having to be registered. What they’re worried about is if they get an outbreak of ecoli etc that they can trace it back to the farm and that they can trace from the farm to other buyers. It’s not an unreasonable public health perspective, but they’re not being very smart in how they manage it.
I can’t categorically state whether it was pasteurised milk or not. But I doubt if it was raw if it was already illegal to transport raw milk to a point of sale.
The laws on raw milk sales changed last year. Before you couldn’t transport, how you can. But there are rules on how you can transport. You can still sell from the gate. The law is an improvement in that all the people buying raw milk before can now do so illegally. Most were doing so illegally up until recently.
It is still available – Just. Pretty much what weka is saying.
We get ours from http://www.livemilk.co.nz/
It’s delivered on a weekly basis and stored in fridges at the local Bin Inn here.
An excellent product. Won’t drink the Fonterra crap. Especially the way the conventional dairy herd of today is treated and fed.
Massey University zoology student Ruby Mammone got her raw milk from Gorge Fresh Organics, which used a system of chilled collection depots to distribute its milk. That distribution method will soon be illegal.
Only farmgate sales and home deliveries of raw milk would be allowed from November. Some farmers said the new regulations could drive as many as half those selling raw milk out of the business.
yeah, MAF or the MPI or whoever fucked it up. But the law change last year (or the year before) was an improvement. Prior to then the only legal way to sell/buy raw milk was 8L/day per person at the gate. Nothing else was legal.
I’m guessing that what happened was they changed the law and a whole bunch of producers went legit and now the MPI are tightening up again abit in response to what those bigger commercial companies are doing (if it was the smaller companies, it would probably be less of an issue). It’s still an improvement (long time raw milk buyer here). The big problem IMO is the cost of putting in food safety plans for very small producers.
I’m opposed to big companies selling raw milk commercially via conventional supply chains. It’s just more capitalism, trying to make money instead of producing safe, local, low emissions food. If we want unindustrialised food, then we need to have non-industrial supply, not big industrial and polluting supply chains that for this product at least are unsafe.
Unfortunately some of the smaller producers are going to get hit but not all, there is still scope to sell raw milk using other models. Eg you could have a dairy farm of 20 cows, bottle the milk, and then sell it at the gate if you are on a main road, or deliver to your customers if not. That’s probably still better than the big supply chain system that moves food huge distances.
That crisis seems to have been avoided bill – as weka explained above. We are still receiving our milk on a regular basis. In fact have some in the fridge right now.
Actually home delivery is not an improvement as the need to keep the milk at below 4 Degrees cannot be assured when delivering. Better to have a collection point. This point was made by many to the committee considering the matter last year.
It’s also about time of year and climate. I’ll leave raw milk out at room temperature and let it naturally sour, so the refrigeration is a moot point for me personally (and I’ll only buy from people I know and trust because of that). But we’re now talking about industrial systems and I don’t have too much of a problem with public safety being prioritised.
Prior to the first law change I’ve bought milk that was delivered to a suburb and kept in someone’s fridge and you picked it up from there. Was the MPI’s original idea that it could be left at each person’s gate?
“It’s delivered on a weekly basis and stored in fridges at the local Bin Inn here.”
That’s going to change this year though right? Farm sales or home deliveries only? Although later they are talking about registered Depots. FFS, if they can’t even get their message straight on their website…
Previously, the law restricted sales of raw milk to the farm, with a limit of five litres per person. The previous raw milk policy did not adequately regulate the production, supply, and sale of raw milk and led to a number of issues that the law never anticipated, such as collection points.
MPI conducted extensive public consultation on raw milk policy in 2011 and 2014. A summary and analysis of the submissions MPI received during the consultation period and a report on a 2014 survey of buying, selling and consuming raw milk can be found here:
Proposed options for the sale of raw milk to consumers
After announcing the raw milk policy and during the drafting of the regulations, MPI engaged with sellers of raw milk on the technical details of these requirements in a series of workshops to ensure they can be practically implemented.
The Government has undertaken to review this raw milk policy two years after full implementation (November 2018) to ensure that it works effectively in practice.
If all else fails go for the scear debate? And you said earlier that the video was nothing more than propaganda – Then weka I’m calling you for doing the same. Sheesh, talk about spin. Who said, not to grow local, it’s not corporate support going on here.
It’s not spin though adam. I’m glad we got to talk about what you perceive as the problem (industrial farming). It’s just that for me Cowspiracy is worse than useless (for reasons explained).
This is anti-corporate, but sure spin it away to some sort of what ever it is you are doing.
I think the problem is how you framed it at the start,
In all the discussions around the environment, we hardly or if at all talk about animal farming. In all the discussions around water, animal farming is tagged on, but not really challenged.
To all the farmers who produce fruits, vegetables, pulses and grains. Just remember you are the righteous ones, and I thank you for everything you do.
I often talking about animal farming and the environment and have said plainly that I think it’s a huge part of the water issues in NZ. And there are plenty of farmers doing bad shit growing plants too. So it was hard not to respond to your apparent statement that plant farming good, animal farming bad. I really don’t see it that way.
Who, in the video was defending one aspect of the corporate sector verse another? Please any point in the video? It was having go at this one aspect of farming, which people rush to defend, by any means necessary it seems…
I haven’t watched the video. Seriously, if they’re interviewing the Cowspiracy guys I’m probably not going to. That’s how bad I think they are.
Another thing to consider is all the palm production in south east Asia. Huge amount of forest have been burnt off in Indonesia to make way for palm plantations. Orang-utans, who are tree dwelling primates who can’t live on the ground, die and their babies are orphaned. The forest fires contribute to green house gases and to top it all off NZ dairy farmers, despite our small size, are the biggest consumers of palm kernel on the planet. We are part of the problem.
This is not a righteous cropping industry.
Given the destructive nature of cropping around the world to do with irrigation, water rights, (and territorial issues like Israel taking Palestinian land and water to grow vege) land clearance, loss of natural habitat, introduction of GE cropping and the monopoly big agri business like mansanto have over both the developed and economically developing world, there isn’t alot of cropping that is righteous.
Not that I would use the word righteous. Sounds religious and it’s too black and white.
Locally produced GE free fruit vege and grain cropping however can be sustainable and productive. Hard in a global market though. Eg, we once use to grow organic oats in Canterbury. They were marketed by Harroways. Over the years they dropped off production as cheap organic oats imported from Canada came into the country at almost half the price.
Industrial food production can’t be seen as righteous in any sense.
The forest fires contribute to green house gases and to top it all off NZ dairy farmers, despite our small size, are the biggest consumers of palm kernel on the planet. We are part of the problem.
And the reason that we are the biggest consumers of palm kernel is that our dairy farmers have vastly overstocked NZ land, in an effort to repay the hugely uneconomic mortgages the banks allowed them to ask for and take out.
Locally produced GE free fruit vege and grain cropping however can be sustainable and productive. Hard in a global market though. Eg, we once use to grow organic oats in Canterbury. They were marketed by Harroways. Over the years they dropped off production as cheap organic oats imported from Canada came into the country at almost half the price.
Southland and Otago too. I think farmers in NZ could get better prices for other crops which they are of course exporting (organic farmer anyway). It’s a high level of disconnect from the reality of the physical world.
Yep, if we’d chosen to be genuinely green as opposed to pretend green we’d have a bigger export market, especially into Europe. Our geographical isolation has upsides in terms of GE free borders and reduced disease threat as well as the benefit of using organic agricultural techniques. We’ve lost opportunities on so many levels, more than trade, but I don’t think it’s too late, yet.
Hi adam. Are you talking about authors and commenters on TS when you talk and “we”? Or in a broader sense?
If you’re talking about TS, farmed animal welfare has been fairly well aired over the years, both by authors, such as John Darroch of Farmwatch, and TS commenters in general.
The discussions have mostly been valuable and thoughtful.
As water quality is going down the gurgler, and climate change upon us. The debate need to be kept rolling.
I’d like to point out that with the “we in NZ can do nothing about climate change” brigade banging on and on. NZ can actually do something quite significant. We could end animal farming.
Thanks adam. I’m a pescetarian, formerly a vego for 30 years so am on your side.
Agree whole heartedly we need to keep talking about animal welfare and the impact animal farming has on our environment directly, and it’s contribution to GHG emissions. The three big issues.
I’d be happy to see a massive reduction in dairying and meat production from an ethical viewpoint but I’m in a minority. I think those that choose to purchase free range or wild meat and organically produced dairy are also in the minority. So those who are big consumers of these products need to be the ones who demand change – a mass movement.
I don’t think we will get a mass movement. Not going to happen in this country, to much baggage.
It will take a group like the abolitionists, small, popularly despised, but on the right side of history. Working to end animal farming, for the good of humankind.
Sadly, thats true. There will never be a mass call for humane and environmentally sound farming practices in THIS country.
And despite my own beliefs I wouldn’t call for an outright end to animal farming. I think that’s too idealistic. Judge not?
I get the feeling from animal rights activists, and I’m happy to be corrected, that the priority is to end inhumane farming practices, full stop, not farming itself. I think they accept people will always consume meat and dairy.
From the climate change perspective, farming comes under the umbrella of all harmful human behaviours and practices.
“There will never be a mass call for humane and environmentally sound farming practices in THIS country.”
On the farm I look after there is an old cowshed , the channel for the washdown water goes directly to the river, if you did that now you would be getting fined out of the game.
There is still improvements to be made yes but to say there is no pressure to improve things is bs
I’m not saying there’s no pressure, I’m well aware of the work various NGO’s have been doing behind the scenes to put political pressure on governments.
But any improvements have been hard won, there’s a long way to go and these NGO’s are still only a minority. If it weren’t for groups like these you’d still be letting the wash down water into the river, (or should I say there would be no law against it, not your personal compulsion specifically) but it’s no thanks to consumer pressure.
Yes. We could end animal farming and…many people would get sick and some would die while the overall population would become less and less healthy and resilient.
End industrial farming by all means. But as I commented above, it seems no-one can point to any culture at any point in history that has survived or thrived on a vegan diet.
You met vegans with huge B12 deficiency? I have. They are very, very unwell people who are killing themselves, with serious brain damage thrown in along the way.
B12, if it’s going to be taken up by the body, has to come from some place other that fruit, grain and veg.
I’d never become vegan; as you point out its an easy way to screw your body at a fundamental level.
But if we are talking about good health, cutting back your weekly intake of red meat to roughly a quarter kilogram a week is a beautiful and easy thing to do.
Whoops that’s just one steak dinner for some people.
Nope I think ending animal farming is the go. Then turn all that land back to commons.
Let the sheep, deer, cows, pigs, goats, and other animals do as they will in these spaces. So then we can hunt them. They taste better, wild venison is lovely, as is wild pork.
Dairy from a roaming animal? I mean sure, it can be done and some cultures still do it, though they do keep herds, so the animals aren’t quite wild or free.
As for letting sheep and goats run riot…I’m from Scotland and Scotland was covered in forest right up until….(drum roll) sheep. And it’s not just that tree cover was cut down, nothing has a chance to regenerate if sheep and goats are around. And much the same with red deer.
Wild cows, like pigs, are incredibly dangerous wee beasties.
And none of those animals fit with NZs ecology.
Maybe it could be done in Europe and elsewhere…alongside reintroducing the relevant predator species, but in NZ? Thinking it’s a bad idea. There is already enough wild meat out there causing damage that is hunted without deliberately adding to the numbers.
How about, apart from animals being farmed for dairy, we eat rabbits and chickens that many of us can have in our own back yards? Isn’t that a better option than letting a whole pile of sheep, goats etc free reign?
The semi wild semi farmed herds of cattle sound like a good idea.
Have you any idea about how fucking dangerous feral cattle, or indeed any feral animal, are, because you know, testosterone-driven bachelor males, what could possible go wrong?.
or how much damage a tenfold (or more) increase in the number of idiots armed with high powered rifles in the bush would cause…..dosn’t bear thinking about.
It doesn’t have to be a free for all. I’m treating the suggestion as a thought experiment. If we were eating less meat and didn’t need to do industrial export farming for profit what would our relationship with meat animals look like. Adam is talking about animals in a less controlled situation as a way of improving the land. The roaming herd thing appears to be a key factor in both regenerating soil and sequestering carbon (reference Alan Savory). This could be done on land with controlled access.
The other aspect is reducing animal suffering by avoiding the freezing works (and the whole economic rort that exists in that system and seriously limits what farmers can do). The omega oils ratio in wild animals is better for humans health wise than farmer animals.
I tend to think that domesticated farming is easier but more damaging. I suspect that adam’s idea of letting land revert and animals free range could be done without the herd going feral.
lols. “Letting sheep run riot”. They can be “incredibly dangerous wee beasties” too 🙂
I did some impromptu sheep herding the other day as a few sheep from the neighbouring farm got free on to the development. The poor terrified thing got trapped in a house under construction, got freaked out and headed towards me at a million miles. Had to jump out of the way as she would have knocked me down and winded me.
The cows get out too sometimes and I gently herd the girls back to the farm, call the council blah blah blah, a familiar process, but I leave the bulls alone. I wait till the farmer comes out and hope the bull doesn’t make it to the main streets. Been chased enough by bulls and the odd mad ram in my life to know when to leave well alone.
And they can also make good companions for humans. They are full of personality when we let them be themselves. Who couldn’t love such an adorable face?
I’m a big fan of their wool and the products we can make from their milk. In fact, our treat meal of the week was a falafel and sheep milk houloumi burger tonight. $5.20 for 150gm of NZ produced sheep houloumi at New World and a meal for two. More expensive than other proteins but cheaper than fish.
Cows were once the new sheep but hopefully in the future sheep will reclaim their place as most loved farmed animal in Nu Zuland.
And goats. We need to take them more seriously. They are a very good dairy animal with less environmental impact than cows.
Nope I think ending animal farming is the go. Then turn all that land back to commons.
Let the sheep, deer, cows, pigs, goats, and other animals do as they will in these spaces. So then we can hunt them. They taste better, wild venison is lovely, as is wild pork.
I haven’t caught up on the whole thread yet, but that’s an interesting idea. I don’t think all animal farming. Dairy, wool and leather are the obvious examples. But I do think some part of NZ could be regenerated into productive poly cultures using wild herd animals and forestry. It would be interesting to look at the human population, how much animal protein it needs (and fat), and what you could get from different land bases. I would guess that with the present population we need a degree of farming even with reducing meat and dairy consumption. There was maybe 100,000 Māori in NZ pre-Europeans, so that gives us a sense of the relationship between wild protein and land base size. We could sustain more than that via agriculture, but I doubt we could feed 4,000,000+ with completely wild protein.
To give our population roughly 1 kg of meat a week you would need to catch roughly 7,000,000 animals per year with a carcase weight of 30 KGS,
That’s one hell of a lot of hunters working and very slick operation to destribute it.
It might be better for some here to focus their energies on improving animal welfare and keep the pressure on improving the environmental management.
That’s per year right? I think that we could get the required nutrients from less animals if we ate the whole animal (organ meats, bones, etc). Plus what the other are talking about, eating small animals from close to home, with bigger animals on occassion.
If an adult needs 50g protein/day, and you can get 23gm protein from 85gm beef, then that’s just over 1kg. But if you were also eating nuts, seeds and legumes, you could probably half that at least. Lots of cultures eat small amounts of animal protein often.
But you are right, it’s a lot of work. Hunting takes energy. This is why I think that population is such a crucial issue. Once you start looking at a land base, say the Taeri Plains or the Waitaki catchment for those of us in the South, and how many people could be supported from that land, and doing so without fossil fuels, the whole picture changes. There is a reason that humans had much lower populations before the industrial revolution (as CV keeps pointing out).
It’s a lot more than I eat, but I think it also depends on one’s metabolism and what kind of activity one does. NZ does tend to eat a lot more than it needs nutritionally.
Seriously good conversation you initiated today adam, thanks. Like Bill said, I think we’re all on a similar page, and how heartening to have so many thoughtful people able to discuss the issues without it degenerating into a ts bunfight. Well done everyone.
Very interesting discussion between Kathryn Ryan and David Parker on water….watch out Greens!…David Parker has well thought-out views and is impressive!
“Labour’s environment spokesperson, David Parker, discusses his party’s approach to water: who owns it, should there be a price put on it, and what are Maori rights and interests in it?”
It was impressive Chooky. David really works hard on his portfolio subjects. It’s hard to trip him up as Kathryn Ryan discovered – no disrespect to Kathryn because she was doing her job.
@ Enough is Enough…agreed they will be working together and David Parker is probably repeating their views…but if they are chasing the same vote on water quality David Parker is a very impressive spokesperson on this particular issue
Interesting facts
Amount of carbon sequestered in the earths soil 2500 billion tons
Amount of carbon in atmosphere 800 billion tons
Contribution of the burning of fossle fuels to increase of atmospheric CO2 two thirds
Contribution from loss of soil carbon due to human activity one third !
Soil carbon content is significant and should not be ignored either as a cause of global warming or an avenue for a very real and plausible mitigation strategy
The major carbon terrestrial carbon sinks are not the forest but the grasslands,
Counterintuitively it is the large herbervoirs (bison , cows) that make this possible by
1 trampling most of the years crop back into the soil
2 eating any trees that try to grow and turn it into forest
If it were about what we need to eat alongside reducing transport and energy emissions quickly, yep. If it’s about global economy, BAU, profit driven agribusiness, I can’t see it making much difference. Some, but not enough.
Mass epipheny…dignity…
that’s a lot to ask but getting out of this… yes, that’s on the cards.
“The answer’s in the soil, son”
Sure is!
Personal ephiany is all it takes. Then, get busy!!!
greyshark – permaculture is one platform I employ but I’ve slipped into forest gardening for its expression. Here’s the link to my blog post that has a further link into our recently-published “Forest garden – Autumn” on Youtube, in case you are interested.
I see the temperate forest garden, such as my 25 year old version, as a very good template for an individual, family/whanau or small community to achieve a lot of the aims expressed in this thread – food production of all sorts, community-strengthening, preparation for the effects of a rambunctious climate and so on. A multi-layered forest garden is also a template for thinking and problem-solving, and from that I see the need for a multitude of responses to the issues described above and would not discard any approach lightly – horses for courses. I do have, however, a passion for the soil, it being the basis for much of what we do (I don’t mean to overlook the ocean, though I look out over an estuary here in Riverton, and recognise it’s primary importance to life on earth, it’s just that I’m a plant guy, not a fish guy).
I apologise for not responding to your comment yesterday – I was sequestered in the chambers of Environment Southland, where I spent the day locking horns, Cernunnos-like, with the farmer-councillors, intent on BAU.
Thanx Robert Guyton. It does my heart good just to read about what you are doing, showing us the way to achieve something concrete after our thinking and animated discussion. Thanks for your reply and interest.
also bwaghorn Sound practical thinking going on there I think.
Just a note – did you know Richard Barbe St Baker, Robert? I know he lived in NZ in his later years. Men of the Trees and I Planted Trees was, I think his book.
and I read Wendy Campbell Purdies book about planting in the desert in north Africa. she managed to get trees to grow that were tough, and then they planted vegs underneath their canopy. Women of the Desert was her book I think..
They were inspired to do something life encouraging after WW2 I think. Filled with noble ideals that they brought to bear. Needed again.
edited
Hi greywarshark and thanks. I didn’t meet the Men of the Trees man but did meet men who did 🙂 I had an association with the Southern branch of the MotT (and yes, there were women in that group) and they helped fund some of the tree-based projects I’ve run over the years. The movement in NZ is defunct now, I believe, as there were few young people joining. Our own ‘movement’ here in Riverton (Southland) is going in the other direction, that is, it’s blossoming, with young people joining us in significant numbers, moving to the village even, to be part of the action. We’ve a community forest garden, a neighbourhood heritage apple orchard, a wetland, a superb environment centre with organic food cooperative, seed savers network, displays on permaculture etc – very active, open 7 days and staffed by volunteers, young and old. As well we run a popular Harvest Festival every autumn and an Earth Craft festival in midwinter. We support and encourage growers through the coop and initiate all sorts of community planting projects, overt and covert. We host workshops on all things good, from fermenting to beekeeping, and teach a regular high-level organic growing course every Thursday night. Our Open Orchard project is very well known now and seeks to multiply the heritage apple varieties we’ve rescued from Southland orchards. My own forest garden has 80 different apple varieties sourced from those settler orchards and several other orchards we have planted around the region total about 600 trees. We are volunteer-based for most of our activities and that gives me much cause for hope, seeing what can be done outside of the funding paradigm. Presently, I’m encouraging Southlanders to plant their/our roadsides with hebes and our cycle trails with apple trees of the sort our grandparents established along the roadsides by chucking cores out of the widows of their cars (or charabangs 🙂 Busy times, but hey, we’ve a species to save.
Robert Guyton
Wow With all that going on and you found time to reply to me. I’m chuffed. Am involved with a new cooperative in Nelson centred round organic food, selling vegs fruit and veg cafe food. We will get that running nicely then are going to add community wellbeing fun things, learning workshops etc = want to be a hub of busy bees and positive environmental things. So will be looking at your web site and keep an eye out for good ideas that we can advance up here. We’ll be trying for some cross-fertilisation of ideas!
greywarshark – that’s marvelous and my ol’ hometown to boot! If ever you want to swap notes, feel free to get in touch through the South Coast Environment Society website; http://www.sces.org.nz – an email to them will get to me. We can begin to close the circuits between the deep south and the top of the south. Then, the world! Have you met Nick Kiddey yet, I wonder?
Robert Guyton
I have met Nick, some time ago but haven’t been working in environment for a while, been in op shop mode. Now looking to environment, healthy food, and co=operating together in helpful, positive groups.
I am very hopeful of the keen and practical doers in the environment group being able to carry many of us in NZ aside from its present dire path. I feel Jung’s dark shadow predominating at present and kindness and practicality must link to set the values to hold to and the
environmental groups seem to be the only ones working to change our approach, many just note the error of our ways and enjoy complaining how bad things are.
thanks for that , I appears to me that the work that is being done is within the framework of monoculture maximise short term farming.
what would happen if the sequestration of carbon was the primary focus and take only the produce that arises from that management (in the long term there might be more produce than now)
what is the carbon fixed / acre provided water and nutrients is not limiting (which would be approached under such management) ?
b waghorn – the next iteration of carbon sequestration comes from Graeme Sait’s work with the “magic 5” green crop plants for the extra-effective production of soil-carbon/humus. The volumes of carbon that can be sequestered this way are considerably higher than with just the single crop. The combination is’ brassica, beet, legume, cereal and one other 🙂
I grow these year-round as the understorey in my forest garden. The soil here is extraordinarily good.
We, the people, should pay farmers (they are us also) through the Government-collected taxes to sequester carbon in their soils. All the Governments of the world should provide this incentive to capture atmospheric carbon and tuck it safely away in the agricultural soils of the planet. Quickly now, the clock’s ticking!
Given that effectiveness is highly dependent on soil type and other (variable) environmental factors, meaning that the prospects for such techniques providing long term sequestration are limited, wouldn’t public money be better spent on known, more effective strategies – like emission reductions?
edit: my bad for not reading the preceding comments first. Changing land use regimes or habits is necessary, but again, why pay for a ‘second tier’ solution that everyone should be adhering to anyway? I mean sure, change. Do it. But we all know the principle cause of AGW is burning fossil and that the only solution to that is simply not to burn fossil.
I’m not speaking of biochar at all, though I don’t discount it. I’m talking about the conversion of organic matter (stuff that was alive) into stable carboniferous “material” through the actions of soil organisms. Carbon from the air, into the soil, where it plays various roles, staying put for a very long time and along the way, enhancing soil life and plant growth (for example, it clasps nutrients to its black bosom and releases them on an as-needed basis to hungry plants, nutrients that would otherwise have been flushed through and away by the rain, or bound too tightly to other components of the soil – stand up, clay!)
This is one of my favourite explanations Bill. Basically you use plants to store carbon, deeply, and then you don’t dig it up again,
You have to understand the different kinds of carbon and the states of carbon soils….
Bioneers: Are you saying compost and cover crops are not effective ways to sequester carbon?
Darren: You might increase your net soil carbon quite heavily in the first few years by the application of compost, and all of the aforementioned methods, but will that last over the longer term? The answer is quite clearly no. Great techniques, great to do, but what we need more of is long-chain carbon. It’s largely delivered in the form of polysaccharide exudate or nutrients released from plant root systems, particularly grasses.
Where we want the carbon and where farmers can look to increasing their carbon levels overall is in the depth of soil. You can have 10% carbon in the top six inches and 2% in the next 10 inches, and 11⁄2% in the next 10 inches. That’s not going to sustain agriculture over the long term, and the top 6 inches is not where carbon is going to be kept and stored and sequestered. It’s pretty well impossible to get that short-chain carbon down into the depths without a lot of intervention, which requires a lot of fossil fuels. The best way to do that is to get plant roots to penetrate these depths and to put their exudates down in those depths. There are carbohydrates created out of the interaction between water, sunlight and carbon dioxide, and then manufactured by the plants as a residue, and their primary objective is to feed the soil microlife.
Bioneers: So deep-rooted plants are key to this process.
Darren: What drives the sustenance and the regeneration of the soil life is the plants. The plants are the conduit between the atmosphere and the lithosphere [the Earth’s deep outer layer, which includes soil]. They keep the lithosphere, the soil, and the rhizosphere, the root zone, alive, because they transfer the energy of the sun, manufacture the sugars as carbohydrates, as long chain carbons, and that’s what feeds the economy of the soil.
I’m more familiar with the grazing techniques used to do this, but I’ve been seeing some work on regenerating forest too (yes, they’re starting to realise now that forests sequester more carbon than previously thought).
Did we mention water? Soil carbon/humus holds water molecules like nobody’s business , creating ‘in-land’ lakes that don’t evaporate, being underground, and require no reticulation to get to the plant roots – they’re already there! We here in New Zealand are experts at water-mismanagement. The black ‘carbon-agents’ being described here will solve all our water issues, be they too much or too little water.
Haikai Tane would add great value to the discussion, though he’s not seen on blogs. Taoist farmers have got it going on! Kama Burwell has a blog and she and Nandor have an interesting interview online.
Why pay? Because that’s the lever that ensures success in that sector. Do we want to succeed? Pay them to do it. They are the ‘big fellas’, they have the land and the capability. Permaculturalists/organic farmers etc. own a minuscule percentage of the world’s farmland. It’s the conventional farmland that will receive the carbon that has to be retrieved. Pay or fail, even if it irks you sorely 🙂
Another reason is that many conventional farms carry a high level of debt and aren’t allowed to stray too far from the BAU plan. If we want them to start doing the right thing we have to make that financially viable. Should definitely come with conditions though.
Well the figure i have found for the global sequestration of carbon in grasslands is
.5 pg /y 10-1 which i think means one half a petagram per year times ten to the minus 1
ie 50000000000 kg or .5 billion tons (metric)
Or .06% of the total atmospheric carbon
Of course that will be the total cycle, more or less of that will remain sequestered depending on management, but
Thats actually a rather hopeful number
Assuming my starting numbers and sums arnt complete bullshit !
Bullshit’s good stuff, Xanthe, provided you have the sequestering organisms in place for when it hits the ground 🙂
But lignin, have we mentioned lignin? Throw some of that stuff at soil laced with mycellium of mycorrhizal fungi and we’re really starting to talk carbon sequestration!
New Zealand is again having to reconcile conflicting pressures from its military and its trade interests. Should we join Pillar Two of AUKUS and risk compromising our markets in China? For a century after New Zealand was founded in 1840, its external security arrangements and external economics arrangements were aligned. ...
The ‘50 Shades of Green’ farmers’ protest in 2019 was heavy on climate change denial, but five years on, scepticism and criticism about the idea that pine forests can save us is growing across the board. File photo: Lynn GrievesonTL;DR: Here’s the top six news items of note in climate ...
This morning the sky was bright.The birds, in their usual joyous bliss. Nature doesn’t seem to feel the heat of what might angst humans.Their calls are clear and beautiful.Just some random thoughts:MāoriPaul Goldsmith has announced his government will roll back the judiciary’s rulings on Māori Customary Marine Title, which recognises ...
In 2003, the Court of Appeal delivered its decision in Ngati Apa v Attorney-General, ruling that Māori customary title over the foreshore and seabed had not been universally extinguished, and that the Māori Land Court could determine claims and confirm title if the facts supported it. This kicked off the ...
Earlier this week at Parliament, Labour leader Chris Hipkins was applauded for saying that the response to the final report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care had to be “bigger than politics.” True, but the fine words, apologies and “we hear you” messages will soon ring ...
TL;DR: In news breaking this morning:The Ministry of Education is cutting $2 billion from its school building programme so the National-ACT-NZ First Coalition Government has enough money to deliver tax cuts; The Government has quietly lowered its child poverty reduction targets to make them easier to achieve;Te Whatu Ora-Health NZ’s ...
Kia ora. These are some stories that caught our eye this week – as always, feel free to share yours in the comments. Our header image this week (via Eke Panuku) shows the planned upgrade for the Karanga Plaza Tidal Swimming Steps. The week in Greater Auckland On ...
1. What's not to love about the way the Harris campaign is turning things around?a. Nothingb. Love all of itc. God what a reliefd. Not that it will be by any means easye. All of the above 2. Documents released by the Ministry of Health show Associate Health Minister Casey ...
Trust in me in all you doHave the faith I have in youLove will see us through, if only you trust in meWhy don't you, you trust me?In a week that saw the release of the 3,000 page Abuse in Care report Christopher Luxon was being asked about Boot Camps. ...
TL;DR: The podcast above of the weekly ‘hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers last night features co-hosts and talking about the Royal Commission Inquiry into Abuse in Carereport released this week, and with:The Kākā’s climate correspondent on a UN push to not recognise carbon offset markets and ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Friday, July 26, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Transport: Simeon Brown announced$802.9 million in funding for 18 new trains on the Wairarapa and Manawatū rail lines, which ...
The northern expressway extension from Warkworth to Whangarei is likely to require radical changes to legislation if it is going to be built within the foreseeable future. The Government’s powers to purchase land, the planning process and current restrictions on road tolling are all going to need to be changed ...
Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedFirst they came for the doctors But I was confused by the numbers and costs So I didn't speak up Then they came for our police and nurses And I didn't think we could afford those costs anyway So I ...
Photo by Joshua J. Cotten on UnsplashWe’re back again after our mid-winter break. We’re still with the ‘new’ day of the week (Thursday rather than Friday) when we have our ‘hoon’ webinar with paying subscribers to The Kākā for an hour at 5 pm.Jump on this link on YouTube Livestream ...
Notes: This is a free article. Abuse in Care themes are mentioned. Video is at the bottom.BackgroundYesterday’s report into Abuse in Care revealed that at least 1 in 3 of all who went through state and faith based care were abused - often horrifically. At least, because not all survivors ...
Luxon speaks in Parliament yesterday about the Abuse in Care report. Photo: Hagen Hopkins/Getty ImagesTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy today are:PM Christopher Luxon said yesterday in tabling the Abuse in Carereport in Parliament he wanted to ‘do the ...
About a decade ago I worked with a bloke called Steve. He was the grizzled veteran coder, a few years older than me, who knew where the bodies were buried - code wise. Despite his best efforts to be approachable and friendly he could be kind of gruff, through to ...
Some of the recent announcements from the government have reminded us of posts we’ve written in the past. Here’s one from early 2020. There were plenty of reactions to the government’s infrastructure announcement a few weeks ago which saw them fund a bunch of big roading projects. One of ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Thursday, July 25 are:News: Why Electric Kiwi is closing to new customers - and why it matters RNZ’s Susan EdmundsScoop: Government drops ...
Hi,I felt a small wet tongue snaking through one of the holes in my Crocs. It explored my big toe, darting down one side, then the other. “He’s looking for some toe cheese,” said the woman next to me, words that still haunt me to this day.Growing up in New ...
Yesterday I happily quoted the Prime Minister without fact-checking him and sure enough, it turns out his numbers were all to hell. It’s not four kg of Royal Commission report, it’s fourteen.My friend and one-time colleague-in-comms Hazel Phillips gently alerted me to my error almost as soon as I’d hit ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Thursday, July 25, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day were:The Abuse in Care Royal Commission of Inquirypublished its final report yesterday.PM Christopher Luxon and The Minister responsible for ...
The Official Information Act has always been a battle between requesters seeking information, and governments seeking to control it. Information is power, so Ministers and government agencies want to manage what is released and when, for their own convenience, and legality and democracy be damned. Their most recent tactic for ...
TL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy today are:Transport and Energy Minister Simeon Brown is accelerating plans to spend at least $10 billion through Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) to extend State Highway One as a four-lane ‘Expressway’ from Warkworth to Whangarei ...
I live my life (woo-ooh-ooh)With no control in my destinyYea-yeah, yea-yeah (woo-ooh-ooh)I can bleed when I want to bleedSo come on, come on (woo-ooh-ooh)You can bleed when you want to bleedYea-yeah, come on (woo-ooh-ooh)Everybody bleed when they want to bleedCome on and bleedGovernments face tough challenges. Selling unpopular decisions to ...
Please note:To skip directly to the- parliamentary footage in the video, scroll to 1:21 To skip to audio please click on the headphone iconon the left hand side of the screenThis video / audio section is under development. ...
Given the crackdown on wasteful government spending, it behooves me to point to a high profile example of spending by the Luxon government that looks like a big, fat waste of time and money. I’m talking about the deployment of NZDF personnel to support the US-led coalition in the Red ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:40 am on Wednesday, July 24 are:Deep Dive: Chipping away at the housing crisis, including my comments RNZ/Newsroom’s The DetailNews: Government softens on asset sales, ...
As I reported about the city centre, Auckland’s rail network is also going through a difficult and disruptive period which is rapidly approaching a culmination, this will result in a significant upgrade to the whole network. Hallelujah. Also like the city centre this is an upgrade predicated on the City ...
Today, a 4 kilogram report will be delivered to Parliament. We know this is what the report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in State and Faith-based Care weighs, because our Prime Minister told us so.Some reporter had blindsided him by asking a question about something done by ...
TL;DR: As of 7:00 am on Wednesday, July 24, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Beehive:Transport Minister Simeon Brownannounced plans to use PPPs to fund, build and run a four-lane expressway between Auckland ...
NewstalkZB host Mike Hosking, who can usually be relied on to give Prime Minister Christopher Luxon an easy run, did not do so yesterday when he interviewed him about the HealthNZ deficit. Luxon is trying to use a deficit reported last year by HealthNZ as yet another example of the ...
Back in January a StatsNZ employee gave a speech at Rātana on behalf of tangata whenua in which he insulted and criticised the government. The speech clearly violated the principle of a neutral public service, and StatsNZ started an investigation. Part of that was getting an external consultant to examine ...
Renting for life: Shared ownership initiatives are unlikely to slow the slide in home ownership by much. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy today are:A Deloittereport for Westpac has projected Aotearoa’s home-ownership rate will ...
You're broken down and tiredOf living life on a merry go roundAnd you can't find the fighterBut I see it in you so we gonna walk it outAnd move mountainsWe gonna walk it outAnd move mountainsAnd I'll rise upI'll rise like the dayI'll rise upI'll rise unafraidI'll rise upAnd I'll ...
There’s been a change in Myers Park. Down the steps from St. Kevin’s Arcade, past the grassy slopes, the children’s playground, the benches and that goat statue, there has been a transformation. The underpass for Mayoral Drive has gone from a barren, grey, concrete tunnel, to a place that thrums ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections Global society may have finally slammed on the brakes for climate-warming pollution released by human fossil fuel combustion. According to the Carbon Monitor Project, the total global climate pollution released between February and May 2024 declined slightly from the amount released during the same ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Tuesday, July 23 are:Deep Dive: Penlink: where tolling rhetoric meets reality BusinessDesk-$$$’sOliver LewisScoop:Te Pūkenga plans for regional polytechs leak out ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Tuesday, July 23, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Health: Shane Reti announcedthe Board of Te Whatu Ora-Health New Zealand was being replaced with Commissioner Lester Levy ...
Health NZ warned the Government at the end of March that it was running over Budget. But the reasons it gave were very different to those offered by the Prime Minister yesterday. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon blamed the “botched merger” of the 20 District Health Boards (DHBs) to create Health ...
Long ReadKey Summary: Although National increased the health budget by $1.4 billion in May, they used an old funding model to project health system costs, and never bothered to update their pre-election numbers. They were told during the Health Select Committees earlier in the year their budget amount was deficient, ...
As a momentous, historic weekend in US politics unfolded, analysts and commentators grasped for precedents and comparisons to help explain the significance and power of the choice Joe Biden had made. The 46th president had swept the Democratic party’s primaries but just over 100 days from the election had chosen ...
TL;DR: I’m casting around for new ideas and ways of thinking about Aotearoa’s political economy to find a few solutions to our cascading and self-reinforcing housing, poverty and climate crises.Associate Professor runs an online masters degree in the economics of sustainability at Torrens University in Australia and is organising ...
The Finance and Expenditure Committee has reported back on National's Local Government (Water Services Preliminary Arrangements) Bill. The bill sets up water for privatisation, and was introduced under urgency, then rammed through select committee with no time even for local councils to make a proper submission. Naturally, national's select committee ...
Some years ago, I bought a book at Dunedin’s Regent Booksale for $1.50. As one does. Vandrad the Viking (1898), by J. Storer Clouston, is an obscure book these days – I cannot find a proper online review – but soon it was sitting on my shelf, gathering dust alongside ...
History is not on the side of the centre-left, when Democratic presidents fall behind in the polls and choose not to run for re-election. On both previous occasions in the past 75 years (Harry Truman in 1952, Lyndon Johnson in 1968) the Democrats proceeded to then lose the White House ...
This is a free articleCoverageThis morning, US President Joe Biden announced his withdrawal from the Presidential race. And that is genuinely newsworthy. Thanks for your service, President Biden, and all the best to you and yours.However, the media in New Zealand, particularly the 1News nightly bulletin, has been breathlessly covering ...
A homeless person’s camp beside a blocked-off slipped damage walkway in Freeman’s Bay: we are chasing our tail on our worsening and inter-related housing, poverty and climate crises. Photo: Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy ...
What has happened to it all?Crazy, some'd sayWhere is the life that I recognise?(Gone away)But I won't cry for yesterdayThere's an ordinary worldSomehow I have to findAnd as I try to make my wayTo the ordinary worldYesterday morning began as many others - what to write about today? I began ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Monday, July 22 are:Today’s Must Read: Father and son live in a tent, and have done for four years, in a million ...
TL;DR: As of 7:00 am on Monday, July 22, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:US President Joe Biden announced via X this morning he would not stand for a second term.Multinational professional services firm ...
A listing of 32 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, July 14, 2024 thru Sat, July 20, 2024. Story of the week As reflected by preponderance of coverage, our Story of the Week is Project 2025. Until now traveling ...
This weekend, a friend pointed out someone who said they’d like to read my posts, but didn’t want to pay. And my first reaction was sympathy.I’ve already told folks that if they can’t comfortably subscribe, and would like to read, I’d be happy to offer free subscriptions. I don’t want ...
National: The Party of ‘Law and Order’ IntroductionThis weekend, the Government formally kicked off one of their flagship policy programs: a military style boot camp that New Zealand has experimented with over the past 50 years. Cartoon credit: Guy BodyIt’s very popular with the National Party’s Law and Orderimage, ...
Day one of the solo leg of my long journey home begins with my favourite sound: footfalls in an empty street. 5.00 am and it’s already light and already too warm, almost.If I can make the train that leaves Budapest later this hour I could be in Belgrade by nightfall; ...
Do you remember Y2K, the threat that hung over humanity in the closing days of the twentieth century? Horror scenarios of planes falling from the sky, electronic payments failing and ATMs refusing to dispense cash. As for your VCR following instructions and recording your favourite show - forget about it.All ...
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts being questioned by The Kākā’s Bernard Hickey.TL;DR: My top six things to note around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the week to July 20 were:1. A strategy that fails Zero Carbon Act & Paris targetsThe National-ACT-NZ First Coalition Government finally unveiled ...
Summary:As New Zealand loses at least 12 leaders in the public service space of health, climate, and pharmaceuticals, this month alone, directly in response to the Government’s policies and budget choices, what lies ahead may be darker than it appears. Tui examines some of those departures and draws a long ...
The Minister of Housing’s ambition is to reduce markedly the ratio of house prices to household incomes. If his strategy works it would transform the housing market, dramatically changing the prospects of housing as an investment.Leaving aside the Minister’s metaphor of ‘flooding the market’ I do not see how the ...
As previously noted, my historical fantasy piece, set in the fifth-century Mediterranean, was accepted for a Pirate Horror anthology, only for the anthology to later fall through. But in a good bit of news, it turned out that the story could indeed be re-marketed as sword and sorcery. As of ...
An employee of tobacco company Philip Morris International demonstrates a heated tobacco device. Photo: Getty ImagesTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy on Friday, July 19 are:At a time when the Coalition Government is cutting spending on health, infrastructure, education, housing ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 8:30 am on Friday, July 19 are:Scoop: NZ First Minister Casey Costello orders 50% cut to excise tax on heated tobacco products. The minister has ...
Kia ora, it’s time for another Friday roundup, in which we pull together some of the links and stories that caught our eye this week. Feel free to add more in the comments! Our header image this week shows a foggy day in Auckland town, captured by Patrick Reynolds. ...
TL;DR : Here’s the top six items climate news for Aotearoa this week, as selected by Bernard Hickey and The Kākā’s climate correspondent Cathrine Dyer. A discussion recorded yesterday is in the video above and the audio of that sent onto the podcast feed.The Government released its draft Emissions Reduction ...
Save some money, get rich and old, bring it back to Tobacco Road.Bring that dynamite and a crane, blow it up, start all over again.Roll up. Roll up. Or tailor made, if you prefer...Whether you’re selling ciggies, digging for gold, catching dolphins in your nets, or encouraging folks to flutter ...
Waiting In The Wings:For truly, if Trump is America’s un-assassinated Caesar, then J.D. Vance is America’s Octavian, the Republic’s youthful undertaker – and its first Emperor.DONALD TRUMP’S SELECTION of James D. Vance as his running-mate bodes ill for the American republic. A fervent supporter of Viktor Orban, the “illiberal” prime ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Friday, July 19, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:The PSAannounced the Employment Relations Authority (ERA) had ruled in the PSA’s favour in its case against the Ministry ...
TL;DR: The podcast above of the weekly ‘hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers last night features co-hosts and talking with:The Kākā’s climate correspondent talking about the National-ACT-NZ First Government’s release of its first Emissions Reduction Plan;University of Otago Foreign Relations Professor and special guest Dr Karin von ...
Open access notablesImproving global temperature datasets to better account for non-uniform warming, Calvert, Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society:To better account for spatial non-uniform trends in warming, a new GITD [global instrumental temperature dataset] was created that used maximum likelihood estimation (MLE) to combine the land surface ...
A late change to charter school legislation will cheat educators out of fair pay and negotiating power proving charter schools are just a vehicle to make profit out of our education system. ...
In 2004 te iwi Māori rallied against the Crown’s attempt to confiscate our coastlines and moana with the Foreshore and Seabed Act. This led to the largest hīkoi of a generation and the birth of Te Pāti Māori. 20 years later, history is repeating itself. Today the government has announced ...
It has been five and a half years since the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care was established to investigate the abuse of children, young people, and vulnerable adults within state and faith-based institutions. Yesterday, the final report - Whanaketia through pain and trauma, from darkness to light ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to take action off the back of the International Court of Justice ruling on Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine. ...
On Friday the International Court of Justice reaffirmed what Palestinian’s have been telling us for decades: that the occupation and colonisation of Palestinian lands by Israel is illegal and must end immediately. They also called for reparations for Palestinian’s who have lived under Israeli occupation since it began in 1967. ...
Labour calls on the Government to act after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian Territories is illegal. ...
The 53.7 percent rise in benefit sanctions over the last year is more proof of this Government’s disdain for our communities most in need of support. ...
Aotearoa could be a country where every child grows up feeling safe, loved and with a sense of belonging in their whānau and community. But for some of our children, this is far from reality. Instead, they are trapped in a maze of intergenerational harm that they can’t escape on ...
Te Pāti Māori are calling for David Seymour to resign as Associate Health Minister in response to his call for Pharmac to ignore the Treaty of Waitangi. “This announcement is just another example of the government’s anti-Tiriti, anti-Māori agenda.” Said Co-leader and spokesperson for health, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. “Seymour thinks it ...
The soaring price of renting is driving the rise of inflation in this country - with latest figures from Stats NZ showing rents are up 4.8 per cent on average while annual inflation is at 3.3 per cent. ...
National’s Emissions Reduction Plan will take New Zealand further from the economy we need to ensure the next generation has a stable climate and secure livelihoods. ...
Following consultation with named parties and thorough consideration of privacy interests, the Green Party is in a position to release the Executive Summary of the final report from the independent investigation into Darleen Tana. ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon should be asking serious questions of his Minister for Resources Shane Jones now it’s been revealed he misled the public about a dinner with mining companies that he didn’t declare and said wasn’t pre-arranged. ...
Te Pāti Māori have submitted to the Justice Select Committee against the Sentencing (Reinstating Three Strikes) Amendment Bill. The bill will further entrench racism in our justice system and fails to focus on rehabilitation. “Reinstating Three Strikes will empower a systematically racist system and exacerbate the overrepresentation of Māori in ...
The Transport and Infrastructure Committee is set to make a determination on the Residential Tenancies Amendment (RTA) Bill in the coming weeks. “This legislation will give landlords the power to kick our whānau out onto the street for no reason” said Housing spokesperson, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “Their solution to the housing ...
“National’s campaign was about tackling crime and the best they can do is a two-year long Ministerial Advisory Group,” Labour justice spokesperson Duncan Webb said. ...
“There are more examples of charter schools failing their students than there are success stories. The coalition Government is driving to dismantle our public school system and instead promote a privatised, competitive structure that puts profits before kids,” Jan Tinetti said. ...
“This government is choosing to deliberately mislead and withhold information, keeping our people in the dark about this government’s agenda and the future of our mokopuna,” said co-leader and spokesperson for Health, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. The call comes after the demand from the Chief Ombudsman that Associate Minister of Health, Casey ...
“Today’s climate announcement by Simon Watts makes clear the National Government is simply paying lip service to meeting its climate change targets,” Megan Woods said. ...
National is choosing to make life harder for workers by taking away the rights our communities have fought hard for. Here's how they’re taking workers backwards. ...
Australia, Canada and New Zealand today issued the following statement on the need for an urgent ceasefire in Gaza and the risk of expanded conflict between Hizballah and Israel. The situation in Gaza is catastrophic. The human suffering is unacceptable. It cannot continue. We remain unequivocal in our condemnation of ...
Attorney-General Judith Collins today reminded all State and faith-based institutions of their legal obligation to preserve records relevant to the safety and wellbeing of those in its care. “The Abuse in Care Inquiry’s report has found cases where records of the most vulnerable people in State and faith‑based institutions were ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says the Government’s online safety website for children and young people has reached one million page views. “It is great to see so many young people and their families accessing the site Keep It Real Online to learn how to stay safe online, and manage ...
Tēnā tātou katoa, Ngā mihi te rangi, ngā mihi te whenua, ngā mihi ki a koutou, kia ora mai koutou. Thank you for the opportunity to be here and the invitation to speak at this 50th anniversary conference. I acknowledge all those who have gone before us and paved the ...
New Zealand’s payroll providers have successfully prepared to ensure 3.5 million individuals will, from Wednesday next week, be able to keep more of what they earn each pay, says Finance Minister Nicola Willis and Revenue Minister Simon Watts. “The Government's tax policy changes are legally effective from Wednesday. Delivering this tax ...
An experimental vineyard which will help futureproof the wine sector has been opened in Blenheim by Associate Regional Development Minister Mark Patterson. The covered vineyard, based at the New Zealand Wine Centre – Te Pokapū Wāina o Aotearoa, enables controlled environmental conditions. “The research that will be produced at the Experimental ...
The Coalition Government has confirmed the indicative regional breakdown of North Island Weather Event (NIWE) funding for state highway recovery projects funded through Budget 2024, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Regions in the North Island suffered extensive and devastating damage from Cyclone Gabrielle and the 2023 Auckland Anniversary Floods, and ...
Indonesia’s Foreign Minister, Retno Marsudi, will visit New Zealand next week, Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced. “Indonesia is important to New Zealand’s security and economic interests and is our closest South East Asian neighbour,” says Mr Peters, who is currently in Laos to engage with South East Asian partners. ...
He aha te kai a te rangatira? He kōrero, he kōrero, he kōrero. The government has reaffirmed its commitment to supporting the aspirations of Ngāti Maniapoto, Minister for Māori Development Tama Potaka says. “My thanks to Te Nehenehenui Trust – Ngāti Maniapoto for bringing their important kōrero to a ministerial ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has thanked outgoing Chair of the Civil Aviation Authority, Janice Fredric, for her service to the board.“I have received Ms Fredric’s resignation from the role of Chair of the Civil Aviation Authority,” Mr Brown says.“On behalf of the Government, I want to thank Ms Fredric for ...
The Government is proposing legislation to overturn a Court of Appeal decision and amend the Marine and Coastal Area Act in order to restore Parliament’s test for Customary Marine Title, Treaty Negotiations Minister Paul Goldsmith says. “Section 58 required an applicant group to prove they have exclusively used and occupied ...
Regulation Minister David Seymour says that opposition parties have united in bad faith, opposing what they claim are ‘dangerous changes’ to the Early Childhood Education sector, despite no changes even being proposed yet. “Issues with affordability and availability of early childhood education, and the complexity of its regulation, has led ...
After receiving more than 740 submissions in the first 20 days, Regulation Minister David Seymour is asking the Ministry for Regulation to extend engagement on the early childhood education regulation review by an extra two weeks. “The level of interest has been very high, and from the conversations I’ve been ...
The Coalition Government is investing $802.9 million into the Wairarapa and Manawatū rail lines as part of a funding agreement with the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA), KiwiRail, and the Greater Wellington and Horizons Regional Councils to deliver more reliable services for commuters in the lower North Island, Transport Minister Simeon ...
Local Government Minister Simeon Brown has announced his intention to appoint a Crown Manager to both Hawke’s Bay Regional and Wairoa District Councils to speed up the delivery of flood protection work in Wairoa."Recent severe weather events in Wairoa this year, combined with damage from Cyclone Gabrielle in 2023 have ...
Mr Speaker, this is a day that many New Zealanders who were abused in State care never thought would come. It’s the day that this Parliament accepts, with deep sorrow and regret, the Report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care. At the heart of this report are the ...
For the first time, the Government is formally acknowledging some children and young people at Lake Alice Psychiatric Hospital experienced torture. The final report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in State and Faith-based Care “Whanaketia – through pain and trauma, from darkness to light,” was tabled in Parliament ...
The Government has acknowledged the nearly 2,400 courageous survivors who shared their experiences during the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Historical Abuse in State and Faith-Based Care. The final report from the largest and most complex public inquiry ever held in New Zealand, the Royal Commission Inquiry “Whanaketia – through ...
With a week to go before hard-working New Zealanders see personal income tax relief for the first time in fourteen years, 513,000 people have used the Budget tax calculator to see how much they will benefit, says Finance Minister Nicola Willis. “Tax relief is long overdue. From next Wednesday, personal income ...
Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden says a bill that has passed its first reading will improve parental leave settings and give non-biological parents more flexibility as primary carer for their child. The Regulatory Systems Amendment Bill (No3), passed its first reading this morning. “It includes a change ...
Two Bills designed to improve regulation and make it easier to do business have passed their first reading in Parliament, says Economic Development Minister Melissa Lee. The Regulatory Systems (Economic Development) Amendment Bill and Regulatory Systems (Immigration and Workforce) Amendment Bill make key changes to legislation administered by the Ministry ...
New legislation paves the way for greater competition in sectors such as banking and electricity, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly says. “Competitive markets boost productivity, create employment opportunities and lift living standards. To support competition, we need good quality regulation but, unfortunately, a recent OECD report ranked New ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says lotteries for charitable purposes, such as those run by the Heart Foundation, Coastguard NZ, and local hospices, will soon be allowed to operate online permanently. “Under current laws, these fundraising lotteries are only allowed to operate online until October 2024, after which ...
The Coalition Government is accelerating work on the new four-lane expressway between Auckland and Whangārei as part of its Roads of National Significance programme, with an accelerated delivery model to deliver this project faster and more efficiently, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “For too long, the lack of resilient transport connections ...
Sir Don McKinnon will travel to Viet Nam this week as a Special Envoy of the Government, Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced. “It is important that the Government give due recognition to the significant contributions that General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong made to New Zealand-Viet Nam relations,” Mr ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says newly appointed Commissioner, Grant Illingworth KC, will help deliver the report for the first phase of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into COVID-19 Lessons, due on 28 November 2024. “I am pleased to announce that Mr Illingworth will commence his appointment as ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters travels to Laos this week to participate in a series of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)-led Ministerial meetings in Vientiane. “ASEAN plays an important role in supporting a peaceful, stable and prosperous Indo-Pacific,” Mr Peters says. “This will be our third visit to ...
Construction of a new mental health facility at Te Nikau Grey Hospital in Greymouth is today one step closer, Mental Health Minister Matt Doocey says. “This $27 million facility shows this Government is delivering on its promise to boost mental health care and improve front line services,” Mr Doocey says. ...
New Zealand is committing nearly $50 million to a package supporting sustainable Pacific fisheries development over the next four years, Foreign Minister Winston Peters and Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones announced today. “This support consisting of a range of initiatives demonstrates New Zealand’s commitment to assisting our Pacific partners ...
Associate Education Minister David Seymour says proposed changes to the Education and Training Amendment Bill will ensure charter schools have more flexibility to negotiate employment agreements and are equipped with the right teaching resources. “Cabinet has agreed to progress an amendment which means unions will not be able to initiate ...
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Another day in John Key’s neo-liberal nightmare.
We have become a cruel, ugly and selfish nation under his wretched leadership.
‘Homeless people are finding themselves thousands of dollars in debt to Work and Income (Winz) for money loaned to them to stay in motels.
Winz will loan people money to rent out a motel room as emergency housing, when there is nowhere else to put them.
People then have to repay the debt, and many say that is just not possible.
Earlier this week, when asked what people living in cars or garages should do, Prime Minister John Key had a simple reply.
“My really strong advice is to go and see Work and Income,” he said, “and we’ll see what we can do, because I think people very often don’t understand what’s available to them.
“My experience with Work and Income is they do their very best to support people in those situations, especially when children are involved.”
He was talking to people like Nicole.
http://www.radionz.co.nz/audio/player/201801054
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/304122/homeless-borrow-thousands-for-motels
Shameful
Homeless and hoping no one comes into the car
http://www.radionz.co.nz/audio/player/201801109
Good for the motel owners though. A bit of government payola to get them through the off season.
Have no fear, your best friends are .. perhaps counter inuitively .. Chinese apartment buyers.
http://www.propertyobserver.com.au/forward-planning/advice-and-hot-topics/china/53562-the-unpleasant-fallout-from-hitting-the-wonderful-chinese-apartment-buyers-who-could-fail-to-settle.html?utm_source=Property+Observer+List&utm_campaign=3c3a911b06-17_May_2016&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_a523fbfccb-3c3a911b06-245304489
That is just horrible, infact I’m struggling to find the words to describe how shit that is, 👿 Are the powers that be really just gutter trash loan sharks.. Ashamed of my country.
@ maui
+100
Loan sharks is an excellent description. The PM sends you to WINZ, WINZ sends you to a motel room you could never afford, and then WINZ cuts your benefit to repay the motel bill.
Labour, Greens, NZ First, Maori party:
Your job is to convince the public that Key, Anne Tolley, and Paula Bennett are callous vultures. Do it now!
Only people benefiting from this set up are the moteliers. I am starting to picture signs up at every second motel in Auckland with “We do WINZ quotes” signs at the door, similar to what happens in the US, where what passes for their welfare system supports an industry of small business owners who do things like cash welfare cheques, buy food stamps, etc.
But look over here……
There isn’t a housing crisis. Labour are just making it up.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11640259
And look over here…….
Selling our land to foreigners is good for our schools.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=11640219
And look over here…….
The dairy industry is doing fine.
Milk prices have gone up.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11640259
War is Peace,
There is no housing crisis
Freedom is Slavery
Selling land to overseas buyers is good
Ignorance is Strength
The dairy industry is strong
“Believe us……… John Key has everything under control
Go back to sleep New Zealand
John Key has everything under control
Go back to sleep New Zealand
John Key has everything under control
Go back to sleep New Zealand
John Key has everything under control
Go back to sleep New Zealand
John Key has everything under control
Hamlet, Act 1 Scene 5
“That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain.”
oh Yes ! quite definitely ……. a villain.
Yes Jenny K.@ 8.39am
As shown here on a clip I hadn’t seen. Perhaps it should be called a lullaby for the corrupt, featuring john key telling us in all sincerity that “I don’t recall.”
We had lots of success in the 80’s in our advocacy work getting these types of payments made non-recoverable.
Basic principles were immediate hardship, unaffordability to repay and exceptional circumstances to justify exceeding the usual limit.
Just had a look at WINZ’s policies which still seem to be similar to back then:
http://www.workandincome.govt.nz/map/income-support/extra-help/advance-payment-of-benefit/other-sources-of-assistance-01.html
Other income assistance
You must check to see if the client qualifies for other assistance before granting an Advance Payment of Benefit. Consider:
Special Needs Grants where urgent assistance is needed to relieve immediate hardship
http://www.workandincome.govt.nz/map/income-support/extra-help/advance-payment-of-benefit/immediate-and-essential-needs-01.html
Immediate and essential needs
In order for a client to be considered for an Advance Payment of Benefit they must be able to identify a particular immediate need for an essential item or service.
In determining if a particular immediate need exists, consider:
the effect on the client and partner or dependent children (if any) if the need is not met
when that effect might be expected to impact on that or those persons
the client’s ability to meet the need from his or her own resources
the assistance that is or might be available to the client from other sources or other Extra Help from Work and Income that may be available to the client to meet the particular immediate need
the client’s existing level of debt, and whether the rate of repayment of the proposed Advance of Benefit would be manageable considering:
whether the reduction of the amount of benefit payable will leave enough for the client’s living expenses and any other debt repayments and
the likelihood it would cause the client to seek further advances or other Extra Help
whether the client is likely to continue to be in receipt of the benefit for the period over which the Advance would be repayable and
any other matters put forward by the client to justify the advance
http://www.workandincome.govt.nz/map/income-support/extra-help/special-needs-grant/other-emergency-grants-01.html
If the client meets all qualifications, they may be able to receive a Special Needs Grant for an item or service that is not specified if:
special circumstances exist and
they and/or their family would suffer serious hardship without the item or service
If you need help deciding whether to pay an emergency Special Needs Grant in these cases contact Helpline.
Payment
Unless exceptional circumstances exist, the maximum amount payable towards another emergency grant is $500.
A Special Needs Grant for other emergency grants may be recoverable or non-recoverable. To help you decide whether the Special Needs Grant should be repaid, consider:
the purpose of the grant
the nature of the needs
whether it would be fair in regards to other clients to require payment and
the effect on the client if they were required to repay the Special Needs Grant
Good info, thanks for sharing this.
An awful insight into insidious ideological brainwashing http://thinkprogress.org/immigration/2016/04/13/3769182/students-bullying-splc-trump/
Neo-liberal thinking has made many people mean since the 1980s.
Look at our treatment of the poor….
“Neo-liberal thinking has made many people mean since the 1980s.
Look at our treatment of the poor….”
But that is the Ayn Rand paradise these Neo fuckwits have wet dreams over.
You mean the SPLC report on its own survey containing clear (and no doubt significant) self selection bias, and their attempt to put it forward as an indicative (eg typical) sample of american schools?
Yes Mandy that’s sad, not sure if one could thank you for that link, but you’re a good sole. 😉
It is also an awful insight into how societies fall under the spell of leaders like h1tler …
the similarities between 2016 America and 1930’s Germany are uncanny
and very very scary
+1
Exactly
As my daughter commented…….I wonder where John Key would be if his government policies re housing were in place when his mother applied for state housing……………he has certainly distanced himself from his beginnings, but ONLY thanks to other people giving him a hand up in hard times, he is despicable.
Paula Bennett is another outstanding example of having benefited from support now not available
“Once, I was one of them. I will never turn my back on that.” – John Key 2006
http://tvnz.co.nz/content/903605/2556418.xhtml
nice.
Key’s schmoozing the people (when getting the Leader of National Party) stage….. So good GS I had to post a bit more of the article….
“I think all New Zealanders would agree that the security, happiness and welfare of their family, which is also dependent on the security and welfare of their community and country, is the most precious thing to them.
“There will always be a social welfare system in New Zealand because you can measure a society by how it looks after its most vulnerable. Once I was one of them. I will never turn my back on that.”
http://tvnz.co.nz/content/903605/2556418.xhtml
Wow, whataguy
@whatevanext 6.58pm
re. whataguy. please watch clip at 2.1.1.1 but comes with x rated cert. for hideousness, so be warned (melody and singer’s voice are quite lovely in contrast to the subject matter though.)
And yes I can become totally deranged by this sorry specimen of a human being in the video.
Aye to that, beautifully done!
I could almost understand if they had never known hard times, but, but….what kind of person can think like this?
Where would the likes of Key & Bennett be without the ‘help’ the state afforded them. $1300 a week to stay at an ’emergency home’ that has to be paid back by beneficiaries receiving less than half that a week, how does that work? Reminds me of the U.S. practise of prisoners having to pay for their incarceration then jail them & charge them again when they cannot pay…How are people expected to get out of these traps!
It’s the biggest load of bollocks I have heard so far from these leeches, how do they sleep at night?
“Locked Out: How Can We Knock Down the Barriers to Afforadable Housing”
AMI Netball Centre, tonight 6.45, 44 Northcote Road
– Shamubeel Eeaqub
– Yvette Taylor
– Alex Johnston
– Phil Twyford
I hope this meeting is full to the brim.
Ask Phil Twyford if Labour is going to ban foreign based Chinese from owning NZ houses.
How about ” foreign based ” think that will cover it CV
I would have thought so as well.
But when Twyford helped design Labour’s “Chinese sounding last names” campaign last year, he distinctly failed to widen the media framing to include buyers from Europe, North America, South Africa, Australia, UK and Ireland, instead preferring to underline the Chinese part of the problem.
Twyford helped design.
Yes that was wrong, but at that moment in time they were right, disregarding those jacked up stat’s ,and of coarse labour did it too, New migrants overwhelmingly vote for the gov’t that let them in, so to speak.
The fifth Labour administration glowed for awhile with their intake. I do agree however their are a lot of white faces steering back at a more multi cultured mob of capitalists running the show now. 👿
Yeah, there’s a reason for that which basically comes down to Smith is the most common name in the English speaking world. Because of the lack of data on who’s buying houses it was only through focussing on uncommon names that anyone could have got an idea of the discrepancy between onshore buyers and offshore buyers.
It really wasn’t racist and it doesn’t take away from the fact that other nationalities are buying up our housing as well. It was simply the only way to show that offshore buyers are a large part of the problem. Unfortunately they didn’t then say that they’re going to outright ban offshore ownership.
so how come Twyford never once said: our data covers Chinese last names only, but to be clear, any foreign buyer regardless of nationality contributes to the problem.
He did.
Where did he make the explicit point that he wasn’t singling out Chinese?
Right in the fucken bolded part. I believe that there was other occasions as well where he was even more explicit.
I know you don’t want to believe it but it was done the way it was done because of the lack of data. That’s it, nothing less and nothing more. You and many others jumped on the RWNJ bandwagon and read more into it than was there.
LOL mate, and I guess the fact that the Labour caucus has not got a single Chinese, East Asian or South Asian/Indian MP (that’s a super region with about 3.5B people) is pure happenstance as well.
Whatever, Labour fucked themselves with “Chinese sounding last names” – it made the party of racial tolerance and ethnic diversity look and sound like the shallow political opportunists that they have become.
The icing on the cake for me was that this occurred just as Little and Labour were starting to poll over 30%. But after the Chinese sounding last names saga, they sank hard and never recovered, as the electorate saw through their hypocrisy, and decided to sit them on the 26% to 28% mark.
After all, Auckland housing became internationally ranked as “severely unaffordable” under Helen Clark’s reign.
Why don’t you go away and find some entitled middle class white people to explain to me what racism from the political elite looks and sounds like, cause clearly I have no idea.
Plenty on ‘the left’ have a huge blind spot when it comes to their xenophobia and/or racism. And, to be fair, plenty on ‘the left’ have other, huge blind spots too.
Twyford and those who defend that shit…you’re wasting your breath CV. Them’s is of the left and ipso facto, can’t be racist or xenophobic.
To be honest, it’s not the racism overt or discrete which worries me; especially given that the history of Chinese in NZ is replete with examples of official and unofficial racism. (Let alone what has happened in countries like Fiji, Australia, Malaysia, etc.)
It’s how low the Labour Party – the supposedly liberal broad church which values ethnic diversity and racial harmony – has collapsed in its search for a brief poll bump.
And the stupidity of some supposedly politically astute people in thinking that NZ Chinese like myself, Raybon Kan, Keith Ng, Tze Ming Mok and others, shouldn’t exercise our agency and push right back.
“It’s how low the Labour Party – the supposedly liberal broad church which values ethnic diversity and racial harmony – has collapsed in its search for a brief poll bump.”
You are surprised? how many examples of poor decision making have we seen from Labour since Clark was ousted?….they have been rudderless since.
don’t know the numbers (suspect no one does) but think its pretty safe bet to say that Queenstown’s (and central in general) property inflation has been driven by foreign investment, and little of that would be Chinese in origin….unrestricted access for the worlds money looking for a home was always going to be problematic in a low wage economy like NZ.
Yep. I’d expect that that area would be dominated by the US/UK rich listers.
that would be my guess, with the odd euro, aussie or asian ….had been priced out of most Kiwis price range well before the Chinese entered the market.
I will be attending. Perhaps you could knock up a post afterwards Ad so we can have an all round discussion on what the guests had to say.
I have very little time for Shamubeel Eeaqub, after hearing him in person at a council meeting in Auckland (while he was living in Wellington) make excuse after excuse for why we should not care about rising housing costs.
“If people can’t buy – they can rent” was his theme.
There were several pertinent questions from the audience that he replied to by avoiding the question.
His current mode is more concerned, but that is because he is now an Aucklander. But he is still very restrained in what housing solutions are available, and I have not seen him show meaningful effective solutions for those whose housing has hit crisis mode.
I really don’t understand why he is trotted out so often as an economic spokesperson.
I’ve had trouble warming to Shamubeel Eeqaub, despite his apparent popularity. I recall during the GFC years he failed to criticise the government over it’s inaction on economic resilience and assistance to those struggling – they carried on with a BAU approach.
Rather Shamubeel Eequab referred to the individual being responsible for their problems and suggested people make cut backs in their luxury spending without realising people weren’t spending on luxuries, as they were losing jobs, couldn’t find adequate affordable housing, and the places that once supplied those luxuries, like a meal out, where closing down anyway.
I remember him saying something, “do allow your self the occasional treat. Mrs Eeqaub splashes out on a new nail polish now and then”. It was so very patronising and an out of touch statement.
Maybe’s he’s more on to it now days. I don’t know.
PS: re the “if you can’t afford to buy you can rent” theme. That’s fairly redundant. Looking at the rental increases lately, some of them are the up at the same price as paying off a hefty mortgage. The average weekly rental of a not very spectacular 3 bdr in Wellington is now nearly the same as we pay on our massive mortgage.
I had an argument with him on Twitter a few months back when he came up with the idea that all of Auckland’s golf courses be turned into housing. It was a purely ‘economic’ argument that he made along the lines of: Golf courses are large and expensive to maintain and only the rich use them but if we turned them into housing we’d both decrease council spending on them and increase ratepayers and so be able to reduce rates.
He obviously did not understand that a city actually needs the large green spaces in them. Sure, turn them into parks that everyone can enjoy rather than just a bunch of people swinging clubs but keep the bloody things.
To me his recent ‘transformation’ into a caring economist is almost subconscious. Subconsciously he’s realised that the economics he was taught at university and which has made him quite well off doesn’t work but he’s still clinging on to it. He’s got a few more years to go to full conscious realisation and he may never get there.
Actually, it’s pretty close to being fraudulent. As a renter you’re paying off someone’s mortgage and their profit.
It’s lazy thinking when people see green space and equate it with “housing problem solved”. They don’t consider the consequences of loss of green space, environmentally and socially or see housing accessibility being tied to other factors such as market regulation, taxation regulation or stagnant wages, social issues around proximity to work, transport and business hubs and the high cost of living.
Interesting observation of S.E’s apparent evolution into a more compassionate approach towards economics.
“He obviously did not understand that a city actually needs the large green spaces in them.”
much like his “zombie towns” thing – where he utterly failed to note that many of them are a shorter drive to a big center than the average AK commute, and that people who live there either create their own employment or… commute
He’s being groomed as a judas goat – as Bennett was.
Be interested to hear if anyone challenges Twyford for backing sprawl today, and asks him who will pay for the increased infrastructure it demands compared with density.
In all the discussions around the environment, we hardly or if at all talk about animal farming. In all the discussions around water, animal farming is tagged on, but not really challenged.
To all the farmers who produce fruits, vegetables, pulses and grains. Just remember you are the righteous ones, and I thank you for everything you do.
This trailer for the film Cowspiracy says it all:
Animal agriculture responsible for 91% of Amazon rainforest clearance; produces a higher GHG effect than all fossil fueled vehicles added together.
Cowspiracy is a vegan propaganda film with poor references. There are serious issues with how we farm animals, including animal welfare, resource use and pollution issues. Cowspiracy isn’t a good source of information in that debate.
It’s essentially a documentary about making a documentary on corporate farming.
The promo video is defiantly propaganda, but all such trailers are. Good on them about being honest about their vegan view point.
The movie itself, is more of a interesting ride, with the NGO and state sector being exposed to corporate compliance. Also the difficulty in filming and asking hard questions about the industry. So if that propaganda, so be it.
Greenplease are not happy for sure. They come across as looking weak, money grubbing, and dithers. I’ve been saying for years them and their friends at the World Wide Fund for Nature are corporate lackeys. Look at the T-TIP grand expose from greenplease, decidedly a non-event. They played right into corporate hands.
So what exactly is the problem about talking about the fact animal farming, at least in this country, has virtually destroyed our water quality? Too soon?
Nothing. That’s a daft question tbh adam. It’s not like the vegans are the only people seriously concerned, or taking action.
The problem with the film Cowspiracy is that it’s core thesis is that being vegan is better than eating meat and dairy. That’s patently ideological and it skews everything else they present. People need to eat what is local, and if that is small amounts of meat then that’s actuall fine. Most vegans eat highly processed, industrial foods are also hugely problematic for the planet including in terms of CC. I have absolutlely no problem with the industrialised world being told to eat less meat and dairy. But when the ideology is stop eating those foods no matter what, you end up getting a worse than useless message. If addressing CC and other urgent environmental issues was about finding substitutes so we can carry on with our excessive lifestyles, then going vegan might make some kind of sense in terms of possibly mitigating damage. But it’s a nonesense in terms of shifting societies to actual sustainability. There is nothing sustainable about most vegan diets.
I thought the stuff with Greenpeace as obviously a set up, but they’re big people they can handle it. Much more interesting to me was the reviews I read from the regenerative agriculture people, the people who are actually practicing what they preach. This is where it came out that the references Cowspiracy were using were poor and/or skewed.
I’ve critiqued it before. There are far better ways to be addressing Western consumption,
There’s nothing wrong with dairy farming, it’s how we’re doing it. Cowspiracy is a fundamentalist vegan film that doesn’t support its assertions very well. It also seems to be comparing industrial stock farming with industrial agriculture and deciding that industrial agriculture is best. Both are highly polluting and destroy ecologies. Swapping one for the other out of ideological concerns just creates different problems, what we need to do instead is make all farming sustainable and regenerative. (that should probably read horticulture)
http://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-02052015/#comment-1008824
Heard this observation being made the other day in a podcast interview of a vegan turned hunter. He pointed out that although there are definitely cultures that have thrived on an intergenerational vegetarian diet, he wasn’t aware of a single one that had based its diet on veganism.
And there’s also the fact that veganism can and often does cause more environmental degradation that other options.
I love eating meat but even I have to admit that the land required to raise a just a handful of cows would sustainably provide all the vegetable based nutrition needed for 50 or 100 families.
That depends entirely on what you are growing and where. If you look at protein alone, the amount of plant protein needed to sustain a population intergenerationally is the first big challenge. It’s all very well for 20 something men to go vegan, but it’s much harder through pregnancy, birth and breast feeding, which is why there are not cultures that do it. You might get a few women able to do that, but all women over subsequent generations, it’s just really hard. And much much harder in the power down when you don’t have beans and nuts being shipped to you from all over the world.
The most productive agriculture with the least impact I know utilises animals into polyculture (some traditional Chinese systems are probably some of the most sustainable on the planet for dense populations and were done for thousands of years). Monocropping wheat, soy, sheep or dairy cows is always going to be wrong. More sustainable cultures eat less meat, but they still eat some and they eat the whole animal (not just the meat). We are so far from being efficient it’s not funny.
the land required to raise a just a handful of cows would sustainably provide all the vegetable based nutrition needed for 50 or 100 families.
If you grow grain to feed cows with like some kind of idiot, then sure. If you grow cows by feeding them grass, like we did up until recently, then no, that’s not true at all. The fact that the world has an over-supply of idiots feeding grain to cows is a problem with idiots, not animal farming per se.
I agree, Especially on the way we are farming. What the point of farming on a industrial level, when industrial farming is the problem.
I’m not a vegan, nor do I support it. As it stands, it will just mean swapping one corporate master for another. So at some point, we collectively need to ask what is best practice? I think you ask that.
But my initial point was not cowspiracy by the way, even though they are the people being talked to, in the “Days of Revolt” video. It’s about the fact the corporate dominance is everywhere. And in food, it has been very insidious problem. It is just at the point of animal farming, we can see how much of a problem it has become. And how one aspect of industrial farming, is feeding another part of industrial farming and the population has no input to this debate.
Even farmers themselves are being deprived of participating in that debate.
Fair enough adam.
To me it looks like the same old shit as all the other fucked up things we are doing. Greed and selfishness and disconnection.
One of the biggest challenges in NZ is how farmers who want to change can do so and still have a viable business. It looks to me like most are tied into systems that are very hard to get out of, esp if they have big debt.
Good on them about being honest about their vegan view point.
I’ve no problem with someone following a vegan diet – hell, I was vegan for some years. Do you watch ‘Game of Thrones’ and know the character ‘Sparrow’? That’s how far too many vegans approach the world – as holier than thou, judgmental arseholes.
(Apologies for making a reference to a piece of pop culture that not everyone will be able to pick up on)
I also have no problem with someone choosing a vegan diet, unless they start making inaccurate claims about their impact on the planet.
Effectively you do have a problem with vegans then, because the ones that don’t peddle bullshit about their impact on the planet are few and far between.
lol. I think the prosletysing ones are just more visible (like fundamentalists of all kinds). I’ve definitely known vegans who don’t push it.
The big problem with Cowspiracy is that it’s a load of bollocks and lies.
Know how there was a system in balance that included (I don’t know) hundreds of millions upon hundreds of millions of ruminants? The problem is CO2 from fossil fuel has knocked that equilibrium to hell in a handbasket.
That’s not to suggest that land use isn’t a contributory factor now that we’ve shafted everything, but really…
Worth remembering that the “system in balance” you refer to included no more than ~0.5B population for all of human history except the last 500-600 years.
Way back in 2006 the UN had this to say about the issue:
How much CO2e do you think the huge herds of wilderbeast, buffalo and what not produced? I don’t know if there are more cows now than there ever was wild herds, but the point remains that it’s fossil related CO2 that has destroyed the equilibrium.
And again. I’m not suggesting that land use, with all the accompanying destruction of eco-systems that probably dealt with shit and what not n a natural environment, isn’t a problem.
Estimates are 30M to 60M bison killed by the North American settlers.
In comparison, NZ with a tiny fraction of the land area is home to 6M cows and 30M sheep.
Interestingly the great plains (now the dustbowl) were built and sustained by bison. Annually they consumed a small portion of growth and trampled the rest into the ground, causing an increase in water retention and fertility the next years crop was corrospondingly bigger and the cycle continued untill the topsoil (mostly made of carbon) was metres deep representing many gazillion of tons of carbon retained.
the most important fact from this story is that it is far more effective and quicker to capture carbon by allowing “weeds” and incorporating them into the soil than any other scheme so far devised. And so doing actually increases the productive capacity of land for food. (Once we let go of plow, poison , spray, fertilise, monoculture as “the only way to make enought food”)
Properly organised humans have the ability to sequester shitloads of carbon quite quickly and live better lives for it.
There is nothing (except interest payments) to stop a dairy farmer from managing their cows in a manner analagous to the bison of the great plains, doing the science, claiming the carbon credits, improving land and water quality, and… producing milk and meat.
It would be “uneconomic” but that would seem to be the only downside!
Am completely on board re that kind of farming. A few caveats though. I’ve seen some big claims re amounts of carbon sequestered but not much actual evidence yet. The evidence is there for building soil, but not so much for quantities of carbon captured.
I really hope it doesn’t get tied into carbon credits. We need sustainable economics too.
Do you think that big plains system would work for dairying? I’ve seen it for cattle, but not animals that need to be brought in and milked every day or twice a day. There is something problematic about all that foot traffic anyway, and it doesn’t mimic the natural systems which were cyclical over the year and perennial grass/weed growth rates.
thats why i claimed “gazillions” of tons 🙂 but notwithstanding that I am quietly confident in claiming 1 that the topsoil of the great plains was meters deep and 2 that it was predominatly made of carbon. I dont actually know of studies of “soil sequesture of carbon” any links appreciated.
An important side issue that should not be overlooked is water retention and silt retention , if you have a highly structured soil composed of organic material “meters deep” you can dump a significant part of a meter of water and retain most of it and almost all of any silt and nutrients in that water, water being the number one limiter/enabler of plant growth, the potential for increased production in areas of seasonally uneaven precipitation (most places!) is huge! obviously this is important in terms of resiliancy to climate change events.
As for dairying consider that 1 trampling (up to a point) is essential to the process and 2 maby milking dosnt have to be centralised to the extent that it is now.
We’ve had quite a few conversations in the past about this. I’ve looked for the numbers on sequestration, there is some research being done but nothing definitive yet. My own view is that it doesn’t matter what the research says because we should be transitioning to these kinds of agriculture anyway. And we still need to reduce emissions.
Here’s a few links,
http://thestandard.org.nz/peak-soil/#comment-995897
One of the best explanations (from an expert) on soil carbon sequestration and what works and what doesn’t at the soil level,
http://thestandard.org.nz/the-greens-climate-change-policy/#comment-823933
http://thestandard.org.nz/act-thinks-the-ipcc-is-scaremongering/#comment-793032 (and a bit down the thread Lynn talks about why he thinks it won’t work. I don’t agree with him, but it’s good to see the arguments from a geological perspective).
I’ve seen something recently on reforesation, esp regenerating forest and how much carbon it sequesters. Thinking now seems to be changing on this and it’s being seen as meaningful in terms of quantity. I’ll see if I can find a link.
Totally with you on soil and water too (been banging away at the one here too, esp everytime the media starts talking about drought).
Re dairying, yes trampling is part of the process but not in a confined area in a confined space of time. You may be right and that it would work with smaller, localised farms. A house cow or 3 in every neighbourhood too 😉 Can’t do industrial, export dairy though.
From my perspective, the corporate industrial farming model is a major contributor to CO2 emissions. Everything in the chain from production to delivery. As Rosie said below, the fact they think it economic to ship oats half way around the world is just madness, and a waste of resources.
So, prioritise making our energy system fossil free. We have to do that right now anyway regardless of any land use issue. That knocks a lump out of the emissions you’re attaching to ag.
Do that and it doesn’t matter a toss if somebody wants to transport oats half way around the world. Also, do that and market economics may no longer be viable – no big deal to my mind and probably a very good side effect of doing the right thing 😉
Meanwhile and in concert…
Radically reconfigure agriculture – replace the industrial models with more sane methods and systems.
Cows in NZ? Do we even need 10% of the numbers we have? Whatever, time to get our shit together. I think everyone commenting on this is on the same page, yes?
“Do that and it doesn’t matter a toss if somebody wants to transport oats half way around the world.”
I think it does matter. From a CC perspective, we have to reduce everything we can, and given there will be some who won’t and that we’re already very late to the party, then adopting eat local is one of the easiest ways we can of shifting to a low carbon economy. Even if we transition shipping to sail instead of diesel, there are still all the other miles to and from port (in NZ food miles within the country are worse than the ones to get food to NZ from overseas).
It’s also a fundamental of sustainability. I think the case can be made for shipping some things (coffee, spices, medicines, rare materials), but in general the whole shipping economy is inherently unsustainable. What is the carbon and other environmental cost of manufacturing a freight liner? And all the other industry that has to exist around that? I’m also wondering if the economics don’t stack up in the same way as with airlines (the more we use them the more airports they keep building and thus the necessity to sell more tickets etc).
imo the whole issue is primarily one of overpopulation of the human race…this is where we should start
…meat eating did not used to be a problem
1.) …countries, cultures and religions( which call for over- population eg male dominated Catholic Church) …which overpopulate must be called to account ( we all know which countries are overpopulated )
( Western countries have not increased their populations for some time and in fact many are decreasing in population…well- educated women with equal opportunities for education and jobs do not over-breed…overpopulation is a feminist issue)
2.) …world economics and capitalist values must have a different idea of what constitutes quality of life and morality …it isnt consumerist wealth and it isnt growth at all costs
3.) the values of the planet and sustainability of the planet Earth /Gaia/ Papatuanuku must be paramount
( we must eat and live frugally…rampant consumerism should be frowned upon…animal rights like human rights, indigenous peoples’ rights , and women’s rights to control their lives and reproduction must be paramount)
NZ has specialised in selling animal products to people who don’t need them. We have our own set of culpabilities.
And we probably have more people that we can sustain too. Population is an issue for industrialised countries. NZ is currently using something lke 2.5 x the resources available.
In terms of fossil related CO2, if our energy system is fossil free – that includes all transport – it really doesn’t matter. You wanna sail or float whatever where-ever? Fine. Seriously.
As the rest of my comment above suggests, given the other changes that we have to make at the same time, and given the likely effect on the global market economy of all the changes, the chances are no-one will want to.
“Cows in NZ? Do we even need 10% of the numbers we have?”
Inspired by b waghorn’s figures, here’s my back of the enveloppe calculation,
7,000,000 dairy cows in NZ, producing 15L/day (should be less than that and not all year round if done without fossil fuels) = 105,000,000L/day
NZ population 4.5M, using 1L milk/day (milk, cheese, yog etc) = 4,500,000 L/day.
That’s 4.2%
Your calculations are in the right ballpark I reckon.
Fonterra ships 250,000 to 300,000 tonnes of milk powder overseas.
PER MONTH
To all the farmers who produce fruits, vegetables, pulses and grains. Just remember you are the righteous ones…
Oh great, farming as a question of religious purity – that’ll really help.
What is profiting from the sickness and death of people and the environment, if not a religious or spiritual matter?
I thought we were talking about farming?
What about the righteous farmers who produce fruit, vegetables, pulses and grains and then sell these as animal feed to other farmers. Are they still righteous?
Shows you did not watch the video, that comment there nadis.
+1
Or the ones using GE and roundup ready mono crops. I’ll eat local, organic meat over imported monsanto soy any day.
It’s not what you grow, it’s how you grow it that matters.
If all else fails go for the scear debate? And you said earlier that the video was nothing more than propaganda – Then weka I’m calling you for doing the same. Sheesh, talk about spin. Who said, not to grow local, it’s not corporate support going on here.
This is anti-corporate, but sure spin it away to some sort of what ever it is you are doing.
Who, in the video was defending one aspect of the corporate sector verse another? Please any point in the video? It was having go at this one aspect of farming, which people rush to defend, by any means necessary it seems…
Adam – go through a typical, thoughtful vegan diet. Strip out everything that was grown overseas using industrial monoculture practices, or processed using highly industrial processes and son on. What’s left? A viable diet? I don’t think so.
And balance up various alternatives, with regards environmental impact, both within and beyond the limits of veganism.
Y’know, things like potatoes versus rice or soy versus wild meat…
My argument was around the original video, and the corporate take over of the food chain. As I said above, swapping one corporate overlord for another based on diet, is in my eyes – stupidity of the highest order.
And no I don’t support a vegan diet. A vegan meal or two a week be a nice change. Or vegetarian meals two or three times a week. Affordable fruit and veggies, rather than them being inflated by corporate industrial farming of animals – would be nice as well.
And wild meat, personally, the only way to go.
On corporate take-over of the food chain – you been aware of the apparently successful lobbying by Fonterra these past few years to kill off farmgate sales? The legislation clamping down on small, possibly quite ‘on to it’, possibly organic producers of dairy, is getting ridiculously restrictive.
Last I heard (a few weeks back) was that, whereas some delivery to pick-up point had been allowed if the milk was placed in some cooler or fridge arrangement, new legislation was knocking that on the head. Think about this. It’s only a few years back that ‘industrial’ milk was dropped on peoples’ doorsteps in the middle of the afternoon.
Go back over the last few years and you’ll find a smattering of stories about the supposed health dangers of consuming dairy from those same small producers.
Ah monopoly, the fundamental flaw no capitalist is willing to admit.
Just another example of corporate madness. Yes I’m aware.
Here an odd story which may make you mad. A person I know makes cheese at home, they would get on their motorcycle and go down country to get farm fresh organic milk from the gate.
They last time they did this, they were told, they could not buy the milk as they were on a motorcycle. Something about a local by-law, or some such.
Hmmm, is that the raw milk issue? Or are you saying that the laws have changed around pasteurised milk sales too?
The previous law said you could sell 5 (or 8?) litres of raw milk per person per day from the gate. You couldn’t transport it, and you couldn’t make products from it and sell them. Lots of buying and selling was being done under the radar as people found ways around that.
The new laws are better and worse, after a long consulation process (by MAF I think). It’s now easier to sell raw milk (and buy it). But producers have to prove they have safe practices, and that costs them (they have to have a plan and do testing I think). Hard on really small producers, but if we want to be shipping raw milk it’s essential. Raw milk can contain pathogens that can make humans very sick. That’s why we have pastuerisation.
And yeah, there is some hooha about where and when raw milk can be sold and buyers having to be registered. What they’re worried about is if they get an outbreak of ecoli etc that they can trace it back to the farm and that they can trace from the farm to other buyers. It’s not an unreasonable public health perspective, but they’re not being very smart in how they manage it.
I can’t categorically state whether it was pasteurised milk or not. But I doubt if it was raw if it was already illegal to transport raw milk to a point of sale.
edit: see comment below macro below
The laws on raw milk sales changed last year. Before you couldn’t transport, how you can. But there are rules on how you can transport. You can still sell from the gate. The law is an improvement in that all the people buying raw milk before can now do so illegally. Most were doing so illegally up until recently.
It is still available – Just. Pretty much what weka is saying.
We get ours from http://www.livemilk.co.nz/
It’s delivered on a weekly basis and stored in fridges at the local Bin Inn here.
An excellent product. Won’t drink the Fonterra crap. Especially the way the conventional dairy herd of today is treated and fed.
Massey University zoology student Ruby Mammone got her raw milk from Gorge Fresh Organics, which used a system of chilled collection depots to distribute its milk. That distribution method will soon be illegal.
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/300188/are-new-milk-rules-a-raw-deal-for-allergy-sufferers
and
Only farmgate sales and home deliveries of raw milk would be allowed from November. Some farmers said the new regulations could drive as many as half those selling raw milk out of the business.
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/rural/300112/minister-stands-firm-on-raw-milk-rules
yeah, MAF or the MPI or whoever fucked it up. But the law change last year (or the year before) was an improvement. Prior to then the only legal way to sell/buy raw milk was 8L/day per person at the gate. Nothing else was legal.
I’m guessing that what happened was they changed the law and a whole bunch of producers went legit and now the MPI are tightening up again abit in response to what those bigger commercial companies are doing (if it was the smaller companies, it would probably be less of an issue). It’s still an improvement (long time raw milk buyer here). The big problem IMO is the cost of putting in food safety plans for very small producers.
I’m opposed to big companies selling raw milk commercially via conventional supply chains. It’s just more capitalism, trying to make money instead of producing safe, local, low emissions food. If we want unindustrialised food, then we need to have non-industrial supply, not big industrial and polluting supply chains that for this product at least are unsafe.
Unfortunately some of the smaller producers are going to get hit but not all, there is still scope to sell raw milk using other models. Eg you could have a dairy farm of 20 cows, bottle the milk, and then sell it at the gate if you are on a main road, or deliver to your customers if not. That’s probably still better than the big supply chain system that moves food huge distances.
That crisis seems to have been avoided bill – as weka explained above. We are still receiving our milk on a regular basis. In fact have some in the fridge right now.
Actually home delivery is not an improvement as the need to keep the milk at below 4 Degrees cannot be assured when delivering. Better to have a collection point. This point was made by many to the committee considering the matter last year.
It’s also about time of year and climate. I’ll leave raw milk out at room temperature and let it naturally sour, so the refrigeration is a moot point for me personally (and I’ll only buy from people I know and trust because of that). But we’re now talking about industrial systems and I don’t have too much of a problem with public safety being prioritised.
Prior to the first law change I’ve bought milk that was delivered to a suburb and kept in someone’s fridge and you picked it up from there. Was the MPI’s original idea that it could be left at each person’s gate?
“It’s delivered on a weekly basis and stored in fridges at the local Bin Inn here.”
That’s going to change this year though right? Farm sales or home deliveries only? Although later they are talking about registered Depots. FFS, if they can’t even get their message straight on their website…
http://www.foodsafety.govt.nz/industry/sectors/dairy/raw-milk/
I do feel sorry for the small producers who put money into infrastructure and systems to have the law changed on them again so soon.
same link,
Previously, the law restricted sales of raw milk to the farm, with a limit of five litres per person. The previous raw milk policy did not adequately regulate the production, supply, and sale of raw milk and led to a number of issues that the law never anticipated, such as collection points.
MPI conducted extensive public consultation on raw milk policy in 2011 and 2014. A summary and analysis of the submissions MPI received during the consultation period and a report on a 2014 survey of buying, selling and consuming raw milk can be found here:
Proposed options for the sale of raw milk to consumers
After announcing the raw milk policy and during the drafting of the regulations, MPI engaged with sellers of raw milk on the technical details of these requirements in a series of workshops to ensure they can be practically implemented.
The Government has undertaken to review this raw milk policy two years after full implementation (November 2018) to ensure that it works effectively in practice.
If all else fails go for the scear debate? And you said earlier that the video was nothing more than propaganda – Then weka I’m calling you for doing the same. Sheesh, talk about spin. Who said, not to grow local, it’s not corporate support going on here.
It’s not spin though adam. I’m glad we got to talk about what you perceive as the problem (industrial farming). It’s just that for me Cowspiracy is worse than useless (for reasons explained).
This is anti-corporate, but sure spin it away to some sort of what ever it is you are doing.
I think the problem is how you framed it at the start,
In all the discussions around the environment, we hardly or if at all talk about animal farming. In all the discussions around water, animal farming is tagged on, but not really challenged.
To all the farmers who produce fruits, vegetables, pulses and grains. Just remember you are the righteous ones, and I thank you for everything you do.
I often talking about animal farming and the environment and have said plainly that I think it’s a huge part of the water issues in NZ. And there are plenty of farmers doing bad shit growing plants too. So it was hard not to respond to your apparent statement that plant farming good, animal farming bad. I really don’t see it that way.
Who, in the video was defending one aspect of the corporate sector verse another? Please any point in the video? It was having go at this one aspect of farming, which people rush to defend, by any means necessary it seems…
I haven’t watched the video. Seriously, if they’re interviewing the Cowspiracy guys I’m probably not going to. That’s how bad I think they are.
Another thing to consider is all the palm production in south east Asia. Huge amount of forest have been burnt off in Indonesia to make way for palm plantations. Orang-utans, who are tree dwelling primates who can’t live on the ground, die and their babies are orphaned. The forest fires contribute to green house gases and to top it all off NZ dairy farmers, despite our small size, are the biggest consumers of palm kernel on the planet. We are part of the problem.
This is not a righteous cropping industry.
Given the destructive nature of cropping around the world to do with irrigation, water rights, (and territorial issues like Israel taking Palestinian land and water to grow vege) land clearance, loss of natural habitat, introduction of GE cropping and the monopoly big agri business like mansanto have over both the developed and economically developing world, there isn’t alot of cropping that is righteous.
Not that I would use the word righteous. Sounds religious and it’s too black and white.
Locally produced GE free fruit vege and grain cropping however can be sustainable and productive. Hard in a global market though. Eg, we once use to grow organic oats in Canterbury. They were marketed by Harroways. Over the years they dropped off production as cheap organic oats imported from Canada came into the country at almost half the price.
Industrial food production can’t be seen as righteous in any sense.
I agree Rosie, the corporate model is so flawed, and interconnected we need to raise our voices in protest to it.
And the reason that we are the biggest consumers of palm kernel is that our dairy farmers have vastly overstocked NZ land, in an effort to repay the hugely uneconomic mortgages the banks allowed them to ask for and take out.
Locally produced GE free fruit vege and grain cropping however can be sustainable and productive. Hard in a global market though. Eg, we once use to grow organic oats in Canterbury. They were marketed by Harroways. Over the years they dropped off production as cheap organic oats imported from Canada came into the country at almost half the price.
Southland and Otago too. I think farmers in NZ could get better prices for other crops which they are of course exporting (organic farmer anyway). It’s a high level of disconnect from the reality of the physical world.
Yep, if we’d chosen to be genuinely green as opposed to pretend green we’d have a bigger export market, especially into Europe. Our geographical isolation has upsides in terms of GE free borders and reduced disease threat as well as the benefit of using organic agricultural techniques. We’ve lost opportunities on so many levels, more than trade, but I don’t think it’s too late, yet.
Hi adam. Are you talking about authors and commenters on TS when you talk and “we”? Or in a broader sense?
If you’re talking about TS, farmed animal welfare has been fairly well aired over the years, both by authors, such as John Darroch of Farmwatch, and TS commenters in general.
The discussions have mostly been valuable and thoughtful.
Broad “we”.
Agree Rosie, the discussions have been great.
As water quality is going down the gurgler, and climate change upon us. The debate need to be kept rolling.
I’d like to point out that with the “we in NZ can do nothing about climate change” brigade banging on and on. NZ can actually do something quite significant. We could end animal farming.
Thanks adam. I’m a pescetarian, formerly a vego for 30 years so am on your side.
Agree whole heartedly we need to keep talking about animal welfare and the impact animal farming has on our environment directly, and it’s contribution to GHG emissions. The three big issues.
I’d be happy to see a massive reduction in dairying and meat production from an ethical viewpoint but I’m in a minority. I think those that choose to purchase free range or wild meat and organically produced dairy are also in the minority. So those who are big consumers of these products need to be the ones who demand change – a mass movement.
I don’t think we will get a mass movement. Not going to happen in this country, to much baggage.
It will take a group like the abolitionists, small, popularly despised, but on the right side of history. Working to end animal farming, for the good of humankind.
Sadly, thats true. There will never be a mass call for humane and environmentally sound farming practices in THIS country.
And despite my own beliefs I wouldn’t call for an outright end to animal farming. I think that’s too idealistic. Judge not?
I get the feeling from animal rights activists, and I’m happy to be corrected, that the priority is to end inhumane farming practices, full stop, not farming itself. I think they accept people will always consume meat and dairy.
From the climate change perspective, farming comes under the umbrella of all harmful human behaviours and practices.
“There will never be a mass call for humane and environmentally sound farming practices in THIS country.”
On the farm I look after there is an old cowshed , the channel for the washdown water goes directly to the river, if you did that now you would be getting fined out of the game.
There is still improvements to be made yes but to say there is no pressure to improve things is bs
I’m not saying there’s no pressure, I’m well aware of the work various NGO’s have been doing behind the scenes to put political pressure on governments.
But any improvements have been hard won, there’s a long way to go and these NGO’s are still only a minority. If it weren’t for groups like these you’d still be letting the wash down water into the river, (or should I say there would be no law against it, not your personal compulsion specifically) but it’s no thanks to consumer pressure.
Consumer pressure is mass pressure.
Yes. We could end animal farming and…many people would get sick and some would die while the overall population would become less and less healthy and resilient.
End industrial farming by all means. But as I commented above, it seems no-one can point to any culture at any point in history that has survived or thrived on a vegan diet.
You met vegans with huge B12 deficiency? I have. They are very, very unwell people who are killing themselves, with serious brain damage thrown in along the way.
B12, if it’s going to be taken up by the body, has to come from some place other that fruit, grain and veg.
I’d never become vegan; as you point out its an easy way to screw your body at a fundamental level.
But if we are talking about good health, cutting back your weekly intake of red meat to roughly a quarter kilogram a week is a beautiful and easy thing to do.
Whoops that’s just one steak dinner for some people.
Nope I think ending animal farming is the go. Then turn all that land back to commons.
Let the sheep, deer, cows, pigs, goats, and other animals do as they will in these spaces. So then we can hunt them. They taste better, wild venison is lovely, as is wild pork.
We clear – I’m no vegan.
Dairy from a roaming animal? I mean sure, it can be done and some cultures still do it, though they do keep herds, so the animals aren’t quite wild or free.
As for letting sheep and goats run riot…I’m from Scotland and Scotland was covered in forest right up until….(drum roll) sheep. And it’s not just that tree cover was cut down, nothing has a chance to regenerate if sheep and goats are around. And much the same with red deer.
Wild cows, like pigs, are incredibly dangerous wee beasties.
And none of those animals fit with NZs ecology.
Maybe it could be done in Europe and elsewhere…alongside reintroducing the relevant predator species, but in NZ? Thinking it’s a bad idea. There is already enough wild meat out there causing damage that is hunted without deliberately adding to the numbers.
How about, apart from animals being farmed for dairy, we eat rabbits and chickens that many of us can have in our own back yards? Isn’t that a better option than letting a whole pile of sheep, goats etc free reign?
You forgot possum. We use to eat that, till it got infected with TB. TB from farmed cows wasn’t it?
The semi wild semi farmed herds of cattle sound like a good idea.
Plus I was being a bit glib, as I was thinking we already have a whole lot of goat, deer, pigs and sheep wandering free – I just wanted more commons.
But sure why not with more chickens and rabbits in the back yard, and more community gardens where we can do it too.
Wool and leather are very good products to have, esp in this climate.
Animals also bring multiple benefits to plant growing systems, from being able to clear invasive plants to providing manure.
http://permaculturenews.org/2013/01/24/integrating-livestock-in-the-food-forest/
Have you any idea about how fucking dangerous feral cattle, or indeed any feral animal, are, because you know, testosterone-driven bachelor males, what could possible go wrong?.
Any reason you can’t cull the males?
nope, farming
or how much damage a tenfold (or more) increase in the number of idiots armed with high powered rifles in the bush would cause…..dosn’t bear thinking about.
It doesn’t have to be a free for all. I’m treating the suggestion as a thought experiment. If we were eating less meat and didn’t need to do industrial export farming for profit what would our relationship with meat animals look like. Adam is talking about animals in a less controlled situation as a way of improving the land. The roaming herd thing appears to be a key factor in both regenerating soil and sequestering carbon (reference Alan Savory). This could be done on land with controlled access.
The other aspect is reducing animal suffering by avoiding the freezing works (and the whole economic rort that exists in that system and seriously limits what farmers can do). The omega oils ratio in wild animals is better for humans health wise than farmer animals.
I tend to think that domesticated farming is easier but more damaging. I suspect that adam’s idea of letting land revert and animals free range could be done without the herd going feral.
http://permaculturenews.org/2014/10/09/intensive-silvopasture-win-win-carbon-yield/
http://www.grazeonline.com/treespasturetogether
lols. “Letting sheep run riot”. They can be “incredibly dangerous wee beasties” too 🙂
I did some impromptu sheep herding the other day as a few sheep from the neighbouring farm got free on to the development. The poor terrified thing got trapped in a house under construction, got freaked out and headed towards me at a million miles. Had to jump out of the way as she would have knocked me down and winded me.
The cows get out too sometimes and I gently herd the girls back to the farm, call the council blah blah blah, a familiar process, but I leave the bulls alone. I wait till the farmer comes out and hope the bull doesn’t make it to the main streets. Been chased enough by bulls and the odd mad ram in my life to know when to leave well alone.
I have some admiration for sheep. Any time I’ve tried to get them to do anything they’ve usually out-stubborned me.
And they can also make good companions for humans. They are full of personality when we let them be themselves. Who couldn’t love such an adorable face?
I’m a big fan of their wool and the products we can make from their milk. In fact, our treat meal of the week was a falafel and sheep milk houloumi burger tonight. $5.20 for 150gm of NZ produced sheep houloumi at New World and a meal for two. More expensive than other proteins but cheaper than fish.
Cows were once the new sheep but hopefully in the future sheep will reclaim their place as most loved farmed animal in Nu Zuland.
And goats. We need to take them more seriously. They are a very good dairy animal with less environmental impact than cows.
Nope I think ending animal farming is the go. Then turn all that land back to commons.
Let the sheep, deer, cows, pigs, goats, and other animals do as they will in these spaces. So then we can hunt them. They taste better, wild venison is lovely, as is wild pork.
I haven’t caught up on the whole thread yet, but that’s an interesting idea. I don’t think all animal farming. Dairy, wool and leather are the obvious examples. But I do think some part of NZ could be regenerated into productive poly cultures using wild herd animals and forestry. It would be interesting to look at the human population, how much animal protein it needs (and fat), and what you could get from different land bases. I would guess that with the present population we need a degree of farming even with reducing meat and dairy consumption. There was maybe 100,000 Māori in NZ pre-Europeans, so that gives us a sense of the relationship between wild protein and land base size. We could sustain more than that via agriculture, but I doubt we could feed 4,000,000+ with completely wild protein.
To give our population roughly 1 kg of meat a week you would need to catch roughly 7,000,000 animals per year with a carcase weight of 30 KGS,
That’s one hell of a lot of hunters working and very slick operation to destribute it.
It might be better for some here to focus their energies on improving animal welfare and keep the pressure on improving the environmental management.
That’s per year right? I think that we could get the required nutrients from less animals if we ate the whole animal (organ meats, bones, etc). Plus what the other are talking about, eating small animals from close to home, with bigger animals on occassion.
If an adult needs 50g protein/day, and you can get 23gm protein from 85gm beef, then that’s just over 1kg. But if you were also eating nuts, seeds and legumes, you could probably half that at least. Lots of cultures eat small amounts of animal protein often.
But you are right, it’s a lot of work. Hunting takes energy. This is why I think that population is such a crucial issue. Once you start looking at a land base, say the Taeri Plains or the Waitaki catchment for those of us in the South, and how many people could be supported from that land, and doing so without fossil fuels, the whole picture changes. There is a reason that humans had much lower populations before the industrial revolution (as CV keeps pointing out).
1kg of meat per week is a lot of meat.
400g to 500g max I would have thought. Steak twice a week is not a bad set up.
It’s a lot more than I eat, but I think it also depends on one’s metabolism and what kind of activity one does. NZ does tend to eat a lot more than it needs nutritionally.
400g to 500g max I would have thought.
I get through that much just in bacon…
There you go Milt, you are balanced out by all those vegans 🙂
If it’s stuff from the supermarket its up to half water in weight…
Seriously good conversation you initiated today adam, thanks. Like Bill said, I think we’re all on a similar page, and how heartening to have so many thoughtful people able to discuss the issues without it degenerating into a ts bunfight. Well done everyone.
Roy Morgan this Friday. Will the NATs sink even lower, to say 40% or 41%?
Or will they bounce back from their lows of last month, despite all that has happened since then.
I am expecting as strong a showing from Winston this time around.
Very interesting discussion between Kathryn Ryan and David Parker on water….watch out Greens!…David Parker has well thought-out views and is impressive!
http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/ninetonoon/audio/201801136/labour-party's-position-on-water
“Labour’s environment spokesperson, David Parker, discusses his party’s approach to water: who owns it, should there be a price put on it, and what are Maori rights and interests in it?”
It was impressive Chooky. David really works hard on his portfolio subjects. It’s hard to trip him up as Kathryn Ryan discovered – no disrespect to Kathryn because she was doing her job.
Why should the Greens watch out?
If there is to be a change of government next year, Labour and the Greens need to be working together, not in competition?
That’s not the way that Labour thinks about the smaller ‘pretender’ parties.
And yet they are changing.
@ Enough is Enough…agreed they will be working together and David Parker is probably repeating their views…but if they are chasing the same vote on water quality David Parker is a very impressive spokesperson on this particular issue
Interesting facts
Amount of carbon sequestered in the earths soil 2500 billion tons
Amount of carbon in atmosphere 800 billion tons
Contribution of the burning of fossle fuels to increase of atmospheric CO2 two thirds
Contribution from loss of soil carbon due to human activity one third !
Soil carbon content is significant and should not be ignored either as a cause of global warming or an avenue for a very real and plausible mitigation strategy
The major carbon terrestrial carbon sinks are not the forest but the grasslands,
Counterintuitively it is the large herbervoirs (bison , cows) that make this possible by
1 trampling most of the years crop back into the soil
2 eating any trees that try to grow and turn it into forest
So just possibly cows are actually the good guys
If it were about what we need to eat alongside reducing transport and energy emissions quickly, yep. If it’s about global economy, BAU, profit driven agribusiness, I can’t see it making much difference. Some, but not enough.
The Biodynamic people would agree…
Good thinking, except our “civilisation” has (so far) been depleting top soil, not enhancing it.
Xanthe is correct. Soil carbon content (read, “humus”) is …
“significant…and an avenue for a very real and plausible mitigation strategy.”
Go, Xanthe!
sadly true
there will have to be some sort of mass epipheny to get out of this with dignity
which i admit is unlikely.
but not quite impossible 🙂
Mass epipheny…dignity…
that’s a lot to ask but getting out of this… yes, that’s on the cards.
“The answer’s in the soil, son”
Sure is!
Personal ephiany is all it takes. Then, get busy!!!
🙂
Soil. Better. Plus the Permaculture movement. Is that your interest Robert Guyton?
They seem to be a dynamic bunch.
greyshark – permaculture is one platform I employ but I’ve slipped into forest gardening for its expression. Here’s the link to my blog post that has a further link into our recently-published “Forest garden – Autumn” on Youtube, in case you are interested.
I see the temperate forest garden, such as my 25 year old version, as a very good template for an individual, family/whanau or small community to achieve a lot of the aims expressed in this thread – food production of all sorts, community-strengthening, preparation for the effects of a rambunctious climate and so on. A multi-layered forest garden is also a template for thinking and problem-solving, and from that I see the need for a multitude of responses to the issues described above and would not discard any approach lightly – horses for courses. I do have, however, a passion for the soil, it being the basis for much of what we do (I don’t mean to overlook the ocean, though I look out over an estuary here in Riverton, and recognise it’s primary importance to life on earth, it’s just that I’m a plant guy, not a fish guy).
I apologise for not responding to your comment yesterday – I was sequestered in the chambers of Environment Southland, where I spent the day locking horns, Cernunnos-like, with the farmer-councillors, intent on BAU.
Thanx Robert Guyton. It does my heart good just to read about what you are doing, showing us the way to achieve something concrete after our thinking and animated discussion. Thanks for your reply and interest.
also bwaghorn Sound practical thinking going on there I think.
Just a note – did you know Richard Barbe St Baker, Robert? I know he lived in NZ in his later years. Men of the Trees and I Planted Trees was, I think his book.
and I read Wendy Campbell Purdies book about planting in the desert in north Africa. she managed to get trees to grow that were tough, and then they planted vegs underneath their canopy. Women of the Desert was her book I think..
They were inspired to do something life encouraging after WW2 I think. Filled with noble ideals that they brought to bear. Needed again.
edited
Hi greywarshark and thanks. I didn’t meet the Men of the Trees man but did meet men who did 🙂 I had an association with the Southern branch of the MotT (and yes, there were women in that group) and they helped fund some of the tree-based projects I’ve run over the years. The movement in NZ is defunct now, I believe, as there were few young people joining. Our own ‘movement’ here in Riverton (Southland) is going in the other direction, that is, it’s blossoming, with young people joining us in significant numbers, moving to the village even, to be part of the action. We’ve a community forest garden, a neighbourhood heritage apple orchard, a wetland, a superb environment centre with organic food cooperative, seed savers network, displays on permaculture etc – very active, open 7 days and staffed by volunteers, young and old. As well we run a popular Harvest Festival every autumn and an Earth Craft festival in midwinter. We support and encourage growers through the coop and initiate all sorts of community planting projects, overt and covert. We host workshops on all things good, from fermenting to beekeeping, and teach a regular high-level organic growing course every Thursday night. Our Open Orchard project is very well known now and seeks to multiply the heritage apple varieties we’ve rescued from Southland orchards. My own forest garden has 80 different apple varieties sourced from those settler orchards and several other orchards we have planted around the region total about 600 trees. We are volunteer-based for most of our activities and that gives me much cause for hope, seeing what can be done outside of the funding paradigm. Presently, I’m encouraging Southlanders to plant their/our roadsides with hebes and our cycle trails with apple trees of the sort our grandparents established along the roadsides by chucking cores out of the widows of their cars (or charabangs 🙂 Busy times, but hey, we’ve a species to save.
Robert Guyton
Wow With all that going on and you found time to reply to me. I’m chuffed. Am involved with a new cooperative in Nelson centred round organic food, selling vegs fruit and veg cafe food. We will get that running nicely then are going to add community wellbeing fun things, learning workshops etc = want to be a hub of busy bees and positive environmental things. So will be looking at your web site and keep an eye out for good ideas that we can advance up here. We’ll be trying for some cross-fertilisation of ideas!
greywarshark – that’s marvelous and my ol’ hometown to boot! If ever you want to swap notes, feel free to get in touch through the South Coast Environment Society website; http://www.sces.org.nz – an email to them will get to me. We can begin to close the circuits between the deep south and the top of the south. Then, the world! Have you met Nick Kiddey yet, I wonder?
Robert Guyton
I have met Nick, some time ago but haven’t been working in environment for a while, been in op shop mode. Now looking to environment, healthy food, and co=operating together in helpful, positive groups.
I am very hopeful of the keen and practical doers in the environment group being able to carry many of us in NZ aside from its present dire path. I feel Jung’s dark shadow predominating at present and kindness and practicality must link to set the values to hold to and the
environmental groups seem to be the only ones working to change our approach, many just note the error of our ways and enjoy complaining how bad things are.
Google “Lucerne carbon sequestration” there is a lot of work here and over seas being done on it.
thanks for that , I appears to me that the work that is being done is within the framework of monoculture maximise short term farming.
what would happen if the sequestration of carbon was the primary focus and take only the produce that arises from that management (in the long term there might be more produce than now)
what is the carbon fixed / acre provided water and nutrients is not limiting (which would be approached under such management) ?
Hey xanthe, not sure if you saw these links the other day re sequestration etc
http://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-18052016/#comment-1175703
You’ve asked me several questions I can’t answer sorry
b waghorn – the next iteration of carbon sequestration comes from Graeme Sait’s work with the “magic 5” green crop plants for the extra-effective production of soil-carbon/humus. The volumes of carbon that can be sequestered this way are considerably higher than with just the single crop. The combination is’ brassica, beet, legume, cereal and one other 🙂
I grow these year-round as the understorey in my forest garden. The soil here is extraordinarily good.
We, the people, should pay farmers (they are us also) through the Government-collected taxes to sequester carbon in their soils. All the Governments of the world should provide this incentive to capture atmospheric carbon and tuck it safely away in the agricultural soils of the planet. Quickly now, the clock’s ticking!
You speaking of bio-char and other such like?
Given that effectiveness is highly dependent on soil type and other (variable) environmental factors, meaning that the prospects for such techniques providing long term sequestration are limited, wouldn’t public money be better spent on known, more effective strategies – like emission reductions?
edit: my bad for not reading the preceding comments first. Changing land use regimes or habits is necessary, but again, why pay for a ‘second tier’ solution that everyone should be adhering to anyway? I mean sure, change. Do it. But we all know the principle cause of AGW is burning fossil and that the only solution to that is simply not to burn fossil.
very old technology.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terra_preta
I’m not speaking of biochar at all, though I don’t discount it. I’m talking about the conversion of organic matter (stuff that was alive) into stable carboniferous “material” through the actions of soil organisms. Carbon from the air, into the soil, where it plays various roles, staying put for a very long time and along the way, enhancing soil life and plant growth (for example, it clasps nutrients to its black bosom and releases them on an as-needed basis to hungry plants, nutrients that would otherwise have been flushed through and away by the rain, or bound too tightly to other components of the soil – stand up, clay!)
This is one of my favourite explanations Bill. Basically you use plants to store carbon, deeply, and then you don’t dig it up again,
http://www.bioneers.org/agriculture-climate-change-interview-darren-doherty/
I’m more familiar with the grazing techniques used to do this, but I’ve been seeing some work on regenerating forest too (yes, they’re starting to realise now that forests sequester more carbon than previously thought).
Did we mention water? Soil carbon/humus holds water molecules like nobody’s business , creating ‘in-land’ lakes that don’t evaporate, being underground, and require no reticulation to get to the plant roots – they’re already there! We here in New Zealand are experts at water-mismanagement. The black ‘carbon-agents’ being described here will solve all our water issues, be they too much or too little water.
Yes! Next time I’m banging on about farmer-induced droughts in NZ I hope you and Xanthe are around. Would be great to have the broader perspectives.
Haikai Tane would add great value to the discussion, though he’s not seen on blogs. Taoist farmers have got it going on! Kama Burwell has a blog and she and Nandor have an interesting interview online.
Sweet, will look it up.
Why pay? Because that’s the lever that ensures success in that sector. Do we want to succeed? Pay them to do it. They are the ‘big fellas’, they have the land and the capability. Permaculturalists/organic farmers etc. own a minuscule percentage of the world’s farmland. It’s the conventional farmland that will receive the carbon that has to be retrieved. Pay or fail, even if it irks you sorely 🙂
Another reason is that many conventional farms carry a high level of debt and aren’t allowed to stray too far from the BAU plan. If we want them to start doing the right thing we have to make that financially viable. Should definitely come with conditions though.
Well the figure i have found for the global sequestration of carbon in grasslands is
.5 pg /y 10-1 which i think means one half a petagram per year times ten to the minus 1
ie 50000000000 kg or .5 billion tons (metric)
Or .06% of the total atmospheric carbon
Of course that will be the total cycle, more or less of that will remain sequestered depending on management, but
Thats actually a rather hopeful number
Assuming my starting numbers and sums arnt complete bullshit !
Bullshit’s good stuff, Xanthe, provided you have the sequestering organisms in place for when it hits the ground 🙂
But lignin, have we mentioned lignin? Throw some of that stuff at soil laced with mycellium of mycorrhizal fungi and we’re really starting to talk carbon sequestration!