There’s only one root cause for all these factors, from the use of cyromazine in various drenches and sprays, all they way through to the very reason Fontera bought into San Lu - increased profits at every stage of the process.

Our entire system assumes infinitely expanding markets to which companies sell ever more products from limitless resources being produced ever more cheaply creating infinitely expanding profits for their shareholders. Which would be great if we lived on an infinitely expanding planet….

I wonder why those Chinese farmers were watering their milk then fudging the protein tests with melamine? Could it be that the companies they supply to were squeezing their margins to the bone in search of greater profit? Fontera’s not part of that process, are they?

There’s two simple ways to increase your profits - put your price up, or reduce your costs. Or both, if you can get away with it. Isn’t that the motivation for nearly every company that moves their production to countries like China which have cheaper labour, less regulation, etc…? Lower costs = increased profits?

So is our dairy industry implicated? Heck yes! And you’d better believe that the day Fontera can produce and import raw milk from China cheaper than dairy farmers in the Waikato can produce the stuff, then that’s what you’ll be putting on your cornflakes in the morning. Only you won’t know, because you’ll still be paying the same price and there’ll be no country of origin info on the label.

But hey, it’s a New Zealand company, so the milk must be okay, right..?

According to a report from Yahoo News, “one of New Zealand ’s most expensive dairy exports, lactoferrin, which sells for about $500,000 a tonne, has been contaminated with melamine.

But food safety officials say they don’t know how the contamination occurred and are now looking at whether the melamine was in the raw milk.

Yesterday Mr Allen said the authority was considering any role which might have been played in the contamination by cyromazine, an insecticide which breaks down to melamine in mammals.

NZFSA has 24 livestock drenches and sprays containing cyromazine listed among registered agricultural compounds on its website.”

Also Melamine has been for sometime used in stock foods. Is our total dairy herd implicated?

Correct, every dairy needs to test the food they sell, or face lawsuits.

“Stop using a tragedy to further your own xenophobic political agenda.”

More PC nonsense. A label saying ‘Made in China” tells you what jurisdiction something is produced in - how is that xenophobic? Or do we have to pretend all countries have the same standards for fear of upsetting somebody’s feelings?

Stop using a tragedy to further your own xenophobic political agenda.