Filthy dairy can't hide environmental damage
The answer of course is that we the domestic consumer already pay a pollution cost in the production of that dairy product and this cost should be acknowledged by making the end product cheaper while also offsetting the environmental damage. The environmental cost of dairy is massive and no amount of free milk can hide this fact.
Tasman Dairy farmers were caught out this month cheating the pollution figures...
Under the latest accord figures, 69 per cent of Fonterra farmers told the company their stock was excluded from permanent waterways on their properties deeper than a Red Band gumboot and wider than a stride. However, a representative audit by the Ministry of Agriculture of 35 of those farms found that the actual figure was just 17 per cent, the second-worst result behind Marlborough with 8 per cent. Nationally, MAF found 42 per cent of 587 farms inspected excluded stock from waterways, just half of what Fonterra's survey of farmers suggested.
...while the punishment handed out for those farmers actively destroying the environment is so pitiful, this $20 000 fine against one farmer actually amounted to a measly 45 cents per litre of effluent he discharged into Lake Ellesmere.
Agriculture is our economic back bone, that won't ever change, but the amount of power the dairy monopoly have been able to gain warps our political values and damages our environment while price gouging those who have to live with that water pollution.
Our investment in tomorrow must focus itself with investment into the technology that makes farming far more sustainable as opposed to intensification. Sadly the National Party is the political expression of the Farmers and the Rich, and will not temper their friends greed in any way shape or form.
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posted by Bomber @ 1:17 pm
2 comments
2 Comments:
There will probably come a time when dairy products will assume their rightful place alongside tobacco, arsenic, mercury, x-rays and alcohol - all once considered efficacious by the health profession.
Despite the plethora of information linking dairy, breast and prostate cancer, obesity and heart disease, the dairy lobby soldiers on and New Zealanders remain proud of their primary contribution to ill-health.
Lots of links here:
http://www.notmilk.com/
Surprising news on CT scans:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/12/26/the-leading-cause-of-breast-cancer/#_ftn1
Speaking broadly . New Zealand farmers have provided us New Zealanders with the finest crop of crooks outside US organized crime syndicates since the 1930's . Look into our political past and you can see them . The architects of our corrupt and crippling system . In ancient times , when men were men and the sheep looked nervous , a couple of good ol cockies thought ' Awww Mate ! Fuck this for a joke ! I reckon I know a better way to make a few bob . Lets lease the farm to some schmuck who'll work for next to nothing and move to the Big City . There , we can make business out of boozing and schmoozing with them flash sociopaths aka politicians ! ' Sweet ! ' Sound trite and silly ? Sound like I'm mad as ? Believe it or not . That's pretty much what happened folks ! You don't believe me ! ? Well , go and have a look for yourselves ! Go on ! It's all there . Roger Kerr ? Cockies son . Roger Douglas ? Pig farmer . The Dipton Dribbler and our honourable Finance MP ? Southland cockie . Rich as ? You betcha . Cunning as ? Oh yes . Well connected ? Uh huh ! Stupid as ? Oh fuck yes ! For any well connected rich guy to deliberately deliver up cruel , ignorant policy just to put a new spa in the fore deck of the gin palace so as the missus can soak her cellulite has to be thick yeah ?
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