Nobody asked me, but... the old adage about not letting the facts get in the way of a good story is certainly dominating most of the reporting on the proposed 18,000 cow dairy farm in the Mackenzie Country.
There is a lot of talk about not so much about when the cows come home - but what and where the cows will call home!
To recap.
Three companies have applied for resource consents to build massive dairy farms in the Mackenzie Basin, where cows would live in "cubicle" stables most of the time.
However, opponents (ie mainly Greenies who object to any and all types of dairy farming full stop, don't live anywhere near where these farms are proposed - proven by the fact they can't even spell 'Mackenzie' correctly and keep on referring to the proposed area as the 'McKenzie Country') who warn the plan will tarnish New Zealand's environmental reputation.
Proposals for resource consents for 16 new dairy farm developments managing nearly 18,000 cows housed in cubicle stables are currently before Environment Canterbury (ECan).
Under the plans, cows will be confined in cubicle stables 24 hours a day for up to eight months of the year, from March to October. They would be allowed outside for 12hours a day from November to February.
Predictably, the Green Party is not in favour of the proposal. It claims the applications for land around the southern end of Lake Ohau and near Omarama mark the dawn of a new age of dairy farming in New Zealand.
"We've seen the dairy intensification happening and now we're into industrial factory dairy farming, pure and simple," says Russel Norman.
Norman - in an atypical Green Party fashion - is predicting all sorts of doom and gloom for the world as we know if the the plans get the nod. In his best Enoch Powell impersonation the Green's 'co-leader' says if the proposals went ahead, vast rivers of cow urine and faeces would be discharged on to land daily, threatening pristine high country lakes and rivers with pollution and algal blooms.
Norman has descibed the proposals with the deliberately provocative and emotional language as as "factory farming" claiming it will be harmful to the animals,
the surrounding environment and New Zealand's crucial free range image.
His scaremongering is paying off with most of the media reporting clearly anti the proposal and encouraging thousands to have joined websites opposing the cubicle farming.
The typical response is the following comment from one informed critic. "It's inhumane to the animals to be deprived of roaming the environment and deprived of the nutrients that the sun provides to them as living creatures," a disgruntled resident said. Yet when challenged as to whether he had seen a cow shed yet, the critic conceded he had not.
I am somewhat cynical about the motivations and knowledge of a man (and a political party) who is more comfortable wearing sandals than gumboots to be commenting on the pros (none) and cons (everything) about dairy farming.
What is suprising is the criticism of the plan from Fonterra. The dairy giant has condemned resource consent applications by claiming it was concerned about the environmental sustainability of such an operation and the potential detrimental effect on New Zealand's dairying image. This is despite the fact the Fonterra itself is an exponent of factory farming itself. Cows at the dairy giant's farm in China never get outdoors, the herd of about 5000 animals at its 35-hectare farm at Tangshanin Hebei province, east of Beijing, lives inside and does not graze on grass. The cows are milked three times a day.
When asked about the example of its Chinese farm, Fonterra said that was the way dairying was done in China and its chief concern was for the "fragile" environment of the Mackenzie Basin.
Really? Or is it more to do with the fact that possibly that the milk which is going to be produced on these farms is not going to Fonterra?
Even Prime Minister John Key - whose political antennae is picking up the general public discomfort to the proposal - has expressed discomfort at the thought of the 18,000 cubicle farm. The Government has discussed intervening as pressure grows from critics.
However Environment Minister Nick Smith, who has the power to "call in" the proposed farming operations in the South Island's Mackenzie Basin on environmental grounds, is still to make a final decision on whether to act.
If I was Dr Smith I would be more inclined to listen to more knowledgeable sources on cubical farming that Green politicians.
South Canterbury farmer Gert Van'tklooster has worked with dairy cows for more than 20 years. He has just invested in a free-stall cow house and says he cannot understand how anyone could call them inhumane.
"They can walk around, choose where they want to lie, go for a feed, go for a back scratch; why would you want more?" he says.
Another expert Chris Broadhead of Cow House Construction adds: "They're not factory farms, they're not cow cubicle sheds; they're not anything like that. They are free stall cow houses, the cows have an open stall and they can come and lie down and sit in when they want to."
Meanwhile, Federated Farmers dairy chairman Lachlan McKenzie (spelt correctly) says cows being kept in cubicle stables was "not like pigs in a sow crate". The stalls were availabe in different designs, but generally cows could sleep in them. McKenzie said it was "rubbish" for the Greens to suggest the cows would be confined to a cubicle. The Feds' dairy man also picked up on the Green's clear hypocrisy on this subject.
"It's a bit rich for the Greens because they are telling people that should have these sorts of homes for stock to keep them off pastures," he added. "You collect the nitrogen on concrete, put it into a bunker and then spread the nutrients very lightly across the paddock so the grass can fully utilise it so you don't have the leachate into a normal grazing situation. From an environmental point of view they are trying to do the right thing."
All good points!I for one will be interested to see how the resource consent process goes. I just hope that Ecan is swayed by the facts and not all the emotional claptrap that this project appears to be attracting.
No comments:
Post a Comment