Fonterra’s Gutting Of Organic Dairying Is The Next Step To GE Farms.

Fonterra has taken its next step towards genetically engineered pastures, with its announced scaling back of organic production by half, according to the Soil & Health Association of NZ.

Fonterra’s announcement yesterday of a 50% drop in support for organic dairy production, shows the dairy giant’s lack of support for good environmental practice or consumer health, and marks the next step to genetically engineered (GE) farmlands, according to the Soil & Health Association of NZ.

“Fonterra has never really been committed to organic production, although aiming for 200 farms and a 140% increase in production from 2005. Just 200 farms was a very limited vision. Organic production across all New Zealand’s dairy herd should have been in any long term vision for clean green 100% Pure NZ,” said Soil & Health – Organic NZ spokesperson Steffan Browning.

“Organic production has been identified as the main obstacle to introducing GE grasses and crops into New Zealand in a Ministry of Research Science and Technology (MoRST, now Science and Innovation) report written by Terri Dunahay, an international biotechnology policy specialist with the United States Department of Agriculture.”

“Government also stopped real support for the organic sector following a briefing to the Agriculture Minister by Dunahay in 2009, yet Dunahay was duplicitous in every presentation I observed her. The misrepresentation of GE internationally, was appalling when Dunahay presented to Dairy NZ and the Institute of Public Administration New Zealand,” said Mr Browning.

“Dunahay and other United States lobbyists, along with New Zealand based pro-GE scientists fail to mention the significant GE contamination of non-GE farms, the loss of markets, the massive increase in herbicide use, the new resistant weeds and disease problems, higher seed and production costs, loss of biodiversity, or the human and animal health problems associated with genetic engineering (GE).”

Yesterday’s shock presentation to organic farmers in Taranaki and the Manawatu that their organically certified milk wasn’t wanted by Fonterra, because of reduced international demand, also included comment that organics caused “conventional” dairy production to be questioned as to its quality.

Best practice organics has improved soil structure and climate resilience, 43% more earthworm counts, 28% higher soil carbon sequestration, improved animal welfare, 33% less energy use, and a massive 58% reduction of nitrate leaching, yet is not valued well by Fonterra, because Fonterra’s conventional farming’s  dirty environmental footprint, might be questioned more.

“The KPMG Agribusiness Agenda 2011 released in June, highlighted the potential lost opportunity of high net worth customers globally by New Zealand if support for organic market and production research is allowed to languish.”

Organic dairy exports from New Zealand grew 400% between 2005-2009. Organic product sales in the USA grew 7.7% compared with total food sales increase of less than 1% in 2010, yet the New Zealand government is allowed funding for Organics Aotearoa New Zealand (OANZ) to stop this June, and had already long stopped support for the Green Party initiated Organics Advisory Service that had assisted significant growth in organic certification.

“Fonterra missed retailing organic butter in New Zealand, and has failed to market its organic products well. Where was the Fonterra brands organic butter in New Zealand super market shelves? It wasn’t to be found. Blaming reduced markets when there has been continued growth in organic consumption internationally shows a lack of organic marketing commitment by Fonterra, not a lack of customers.”

“Fonterra and the government have spent millions of dollars on GE rye grass development, while support has been stalled for the organic sector.”

“Most of Europe and Scandinavia and many other countries have targets for farm production conversion to organics, because the environmental and social benefits are well recognised, but in New Zealand there appears to be a blind adherence to short term economic benefit including GE, even when non-GE alternatives are proven.”

“When I asked on Friday, why the government had spent tens of millions on GE grasses, but had effectively stopped spending money on organics, Environment Minister Nick Smith told me, “We didn’t think there was any money in it,” “said Mr Browning.

“The planting of 336 GE pine trees by Scion and ArborGen at their Rotorua field trial site last week adds to the sadness of spirit New Zealand is suffering through short term financial aims by giant agribusiness, while it ignores the environmental and social health of Aotearoa New Zealand.”

Soil & Health wishes to express its support for the organic farmers whose livelihoods, dedication and dreams have been shaken by yesterday’s Fonterra announcement.

“Support by Federated Farmers to resist the drive for GE production in New Zealand, a requirement of the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA), could reignite Fonterra’s interest in organics. The New Zealand environment and consumers of the world will say thanks.”

“The D-word – dairy – cited by Mr Key in in linking together the wonders of free trade with China and India should give cause for concern.  Recent reports on how the likes of the Hauraki Gulf and the Kaipara Harbour are changing into marine sewage ponds thanks to bovine excrement and fertiliser runoffs show we are being ‘uddermined’ by poisoning our country to feed foreigners.  Yes, we can sell artificially sustained grass-fed dairy products, but no – as Mr Key so painfully discovered as an interviewee on BBC television – we can’t keep lying about our pure, clean and green image.”

I spent a great day at the Ice Ideas Conference on Friday and came away more convinced than ever that we have the people, the ideas and the capacity to put our economy on a vastly more sustainable footing.

Nobody in the room of some six hundred was heard to suggest that selling more and more  milk powder, or raw logs, or any other high volume / low value commodity is going to give us any joy economically, socially or environmentally.

Those commodities will inevitably hit environmental limits and constraints, as dairying has already shown, and trying to create financial capital at the expense of natural capital is a fool’s errand.

Invasive trout blamed for poor water quality — are farmers off the hook?

Scientists are questioning claims by a prominent dairy industry representative, suggesting trout are a ‘disastrous species’ — no better than ‘freshwater stoats’ — and that farmers have been unfairly blamed for their impacts on declining water quality.

These allegations were made in a speech last week by outgoing Federated Farmers chair Dairy chairperson Lachlan McKenzie, urging members to use science and their own judgement to distinguish fact from opinion.

Professor Colin Townsend, Dept of Zoology, University of Otago comments:

“In his speech, Lachlan McKenzie advises us not to accept someone’s opinion as gospel but to interrogate it and check it out. ‘If robust it will stand scrutiny’, he says, ‘if not, there is cause for concern’.

“As a researcher with 40 years experience and someone intimately involved in both trout research and the effects of agriculture on stream ecology I wish to comment on a few relevant points.

“Our research has shown that by reducing grazing by stream insects, trout can lead to a modest increase in algae on the streambed. These extra algae have the effect of sucking up some nitrogen from stream water and so the trout actually make a small contribution to cleaning up the mess caused by nutrient runoff from farms. In any case, the small changes to nutrient fluxes in streams associated with trout are swamped by the much larger amounts of nutrients entering as diffuse pollution from the land.

“It’s worth noting too that our research in Otago shows that soil erosion, and the resulting smothering of the streambed by fine sediment can be even more harmful to stream health than nutrient enrichment. Unless Lachlan McKenzie has witnessed trout emerging from streams and churning up the land with their big fat hooves, he will find it difficult to shift responsibility from cows to trout.

“Farming is important to New Zealand but so is the state of our environment. Thankfully, many farmers are already doing their best to be good stewards. What is needed now is more discussion, education and collaboration between all sectors with an interest in land and water management, not an untutored and distorted analysis of the evidence.”

Professor Angus McIntosh, Chair in Freshwater Ecology, University of Canterbury comments:

“I have studied the influence of trout on native biodiversity for most of my career, and as a researcher, I’m also involved in developing ways to mitigate the effects of land-use intensification on waterways.

“Yes, it is true that trout have negatively influenced native biodiversity and they do alter nutrient cycling. However, to compare their effects to stoats, and to imply they are somehow worse than, or equivalent to, the effects of land use intensification on water ways is a misrepresentation of the science.

“Firstly, they are clearly not ‘eating the basis of the food chain’ since we have highly productive trout fisheries in clean water streams. Native fish populations have been affected, but the resilience displayed by stream invertebrates in supporting predation by both native and introduced fishes is remarkable. Secondly, the effects of nutrient enrichment on algal accumulation and nutrient cycling are much more powerful than those of trout.

“Experiments conducted in New Zealand and elsewhere clearly establish that elevated nutrient concentrations quickly overwhelm any effect of trout on algae, which is actually small by comparison. Trout have not been responsible for what could be described as ‘algal blooms’ in New Zealand or elsewhere. Moreover, the effects of nutrient enrichment on stream invertebrate communities are also likely to be much stronger than those of trout. …

“The health of water ways in places like lowland Canterbury is very poor at present. The primary causes in agricultural areas are high sediment levels, low flow and high nutrient levels. In urban areas, storm water contaminated with heavy metals and sediment (especially since the earthquakes) are to blame. Discussion regarding urban and rural waterways should be revolving around plans for rehabilitation and management, and needs to based firmly on the best science possible.”

Prof Jenny Webster-Brown, Director — Waterways Centre for Freshwater Management comments:

“Trout may be an introduced species, but they are also the most sensitive species to most contaminants, and the first to show the effects of water quality decline. Because they are widespread globally, there is also a great deal of toxicity data (data that tell us when a particular species will be affected by increasing contaminant concentrations) available for trout; certainly when compared to the data available for species which are endemic to New Zealand.

“Trout are therefore a very useful indicator of water quality, and protecting them ensures an additional level of protection for other species from the effects of poor water quality. “

I spoke on the science of declining water quality at the Fed Farmers Conference last Thursday. My PowerPoint presentation from the speech is available as a PDF here.

Click here for detailed reports and photos from each trip.

Plus check out media coverage of Russel on the Manawatu, the Hutt, the Taumarere, and the Waihou.

This morning Russel’s been at Lake Ellesmere (the first lake on the tour) which has been closed due to toxic algal blooms since late Feb. I sincerely hope he didn’t swallow any!

Got any particularly dirty rivers or lakes in your area? How many times have your favourite swimming spots been closed this summer? Let us know in the comments.

And this is cubicle factory dairy production – the battery cow. Or this:

Cognitive dissonance anyone?

Most of us love having homes where we go to rest, eat, blog and shelter from rough weather. But imagine spending 8 months of the year confined inside – you’d have one hell of a case of cabin fever. That’s what is being applied for in the case of the Mackenzie Basin factory-farms.

Federated Farmers and the National Business Review are pretending not to know the difference between a herd home and a factory farm. They even think Russel Norman and I have different opinions on them.

A herd home on a Waikato dairy farm

They can’t succeed in driving a wedge between Russel and me on this because Russel and I visited Mike Moss’s herd home together, last year. This farm is featured on the Greens’ Good Farm Stories website.

Herd homes are open, light and airy and the cows are free to move around. They are not used 24/7. Even in filthy weather the cows are outside for at least the four hours it takes them to eat their daily ration of fresh grass. Then they are off the paddock, protecting the soil from pugging in wet weather and sheltering in the herd home where they have a ration of hay or silage to eat at will.

Russel and I were totally convinced when we saw the cows waiting to get back in after their time outside. When the weather is fine and the soil reasonably dry, they are outside all the time. Using a herd home as part of a pastoral farm results in much less nitrous oxide emissions from the wet soil. More manure and urine are able to be collected and treated for application to pasture when conditions are suitable. Animal welfare is improved. And herd homes can be used in a low-energy system because the cows still harvest their own feed with local dry feed as a supplement.

Mackenzie Country in snow CC 2.0

The factory-farms being applied for in the Mackenzie Basin are the opposite. The cows will be indoors 24 hours a day for 8 months, perhaps in cubicles most of the time. All feed will be brought to them, so it will require additional energy to produce and transport. Will it be palm kernel? Or maize or silage ‘cut and carried’ by trucks from hundreds of miles away? The Mackenzie Basin is a place where for much of the year no feed can be grown locally and the weather is inhospitable for cows.

Federated Farmers have twittered that it is the “principal” (I think they mean principle) that matters, not the scale. They’re wrong: it’s both.

Environmentally, scale can be everything. 180 cows might have a manageable impact on water quality, but 18,000 cows is a whole different ball-game. It is precisely the scale of dairying in New Zealand – the sheer numbers of cows, the intensity of stocking rates, and the resulting effluent and emissions – that is turning what used to be seen as a ‘clean green’ wholesome industry into a major polluter.

It’s also the principle. Outdoor cows that occasionally go indoors is fundamentally different to indoor cows that occasionally go outdoors. Animal welfare is an issue of principle, not scale – farm animals should live meaningful lives on farms, not in factories.

Intensive dairying in completely unsuitable places like the Mackenzie Country, and factory-farming practices generally, are recipes for disaster. The principle is all wrong, and the scale makes it worse still.

If you need any more convincing, then consider that Fonterra promotes use of herd homes on dairy farms, but has serious concerns about factory-farming destroying New Zealand’s competitive advantage of World SPCA-approved ‘clean and green’ pastoral dairying. And today the ODT reports Otago tourism and residents’ organisations calling the factory-farming proposals “insanity”.

Agricultural intensification over the past 10 years has led to the highest rate of native vegetation loss since European colonisation.

Lake Taupo farm and forest

So says the 2009 annual report of Landcare Research, a Crown Research Institute, in an article about ‘Post-capitalism conservation’.

Landcare argues that the market is disconnected from natural capital, a problem that has contributed to the current economic crisis. Land biodiversity in New Zealand is a good example: where natural vegetation has been cleared away for intensive farming. This results in:

increased risk to the ongoing supply of essential goods and services (such as clean water) provided by biodiversity, as well as its intrinsic aesthetic and intellectual value.

They say that the fragmentation of native forests and streamside vegetation also make us more vulnerable to invasive species and impacts of climate change, and reduce resilience on the remainder of native biodiversity such that it further fragments.

I was staggered at the fact that the last decade has seen the fastest decline in native vegetation since colonisation. I knew we were still losing more native cover than we were gaining, but the ‘worst decade’ status is quite extraordinary. It’s certainly more evidence that the Labour government’s environmental rhetoric was just that, rhetoric.

The key instrument to arrest this decline would be a National Policy Statement on Biodiversity to give some guidance for the Resource Management Act. There’s no doubt it’s a difficult policy to write, because to work it would have to restrict landowners’ clearance of native vegetation, and incentivise regeneration and replanting. Given this decade’s performance has been so bad, current voluntary schemes like covenants, guidelines and accords are not sufficient. It is New Zealand Inc. that will pay the cost, including private landowners, with degraded waterways and more pest and weed problems. The Greens finally convinced Labour to commit to the NPS on biodiversity as part of ETS negotiations (pine forests in the wrong place can be another threat to biodiversity), after Labour’s earlier false start in 2000. National committed to one before the election:  “National is committed to developing a NPS under the RMA on biodiversity. It is likely the 2011 deadline will be met”. This then slipped to unlikely, but now seem interested again. Whether the two old parties have more than a Clayton’s interest will be seen in time.

Meanwhile, Landcare’s work is aimed at assessing and valuing the public values of biodiversity, including the idea of biodiversity offsetting. The Greens can see some benefit in biodiversity offsetting, but plenty of dangers too.

Mokihinui Gorge from the air

Take Meridian’s proposed land-swap to allow them to dam the Mokihinui River. Their proposal is to swap the 330ha of forest and river they want to inundated in the Mokihinui Gorge with 794ha of coastal forest land they have bought. This would then mean the gorge was effectively private land, and no longer conservation land, so no concession would be required from DOC to dam it. That’s a net gain of 450ha of native forest, right?

Wrong. The first problem is that currently there are 1030ha of native forest at the two sites. Doing the swap and damming the gorge will result in 800ha left – a net loss of 330ha. While the protection status of the coast forest would be higher, it is forest now and will still be forest after so little is gained. Fundamentally, neither area of forest should be cut down .

The second problem is that the nature of the two sites is very different. Damming the Mokihinui would result in one fewer wild river, obstruct a very health habitat of the already-declining long-finned eel and whio (blue duck), and destroy a unique landscape with its own intrinsic values.

DOC and the Minister of Conservation are currently considering Meridian’s proposed land-swap, so please write to Tim Groser to urge him to turn it down.

Frog will look deeper at biodiversity offsetting in future, but finally, Landcare’s article also notes the importance to pest control to ensure we don’t just have forests, but have healthy forests. The Green MPs write about the same in the latest issue of GreenTimes, which you can read here [PDF 800kb].

It’s great to see diverse groups – tree-huggers, deer-stalkers, bird-watchers, knobbly-kneed trampers, sharp-edged climbers, risky rafters, kool-kat kayakers, and angelic anglers – representing “over 100,000 New Zealanders” and united in seeking to protect wild rivers from inappropriate and unnecessary hydro-electric and irrigation water storage dams.

They’re not saying no hydro or storage anywhere, but that we have a finite number of wild rivers left, and must protect them from being picked off one-by-one.

The groups are Fish & Game, Federated Mountain Clubs, Forest & Bird, Whitewater NZ, the Council of Outdoor Recreation Associations of NZ, the NZ Rafting Association, the New Zealand Federation of Freshwater Anglers and the Environment and Conservation Organisations of NZ.

The various groups point out the public values for conservation and recreation that are inherent to wild rivers, and are lost if they are dammed. For Whitewater NZ it’s enjoyment of the water, and the tourism industry; for Fish and Game it’s the fishing, of course, and the importance of Water Conservation Orders (that the Govt seems keen to get rid of); for FMC it’s the ability to walk and camp in a natural setting, of which wild rivers form the “lifeblood”; and Forest and Bird cite the unique wild river wildlife – native eels and fish, and endangered blue ducks.

The groups have fought hard for decades to get protection of wild lakes and rivers such as Lake Manapouri and the mighty Motu River. Water conservation orders have been a crucial tool in protecting such waterways, but the future of the orders, and the fate of dozens of other threatened wild rivers, is in peril.

They also note that we’ve already sacrificed many wild rivers, so there are a finite number left. They say, “Damming them is irresponsible and short-sighted, especially when there are much more responsible and sustainable options.” They’ve done their homework on the energy and irrigation needs too, which a summary of the alternative solution, and the choice, on their website. They also think that:

Energy planning must become more strategic, focusing on efficiency rather than building more dams. The Electricity Commission has said that NZ could make savings of 6400 gigawatt hours a year – equivalent to 20 Mokihinui dams – at less cost than building new electricity generators. New Zealand also has plentiful wind and geothermal resources that can be better developed to generate electricity. Innovative emerging technologies also show promise.

Industrial-scale farming is demanding more water from rivers to irrigate land that is naturally too dry for dairy cows. Farming use should be appropriate to the climate and land.

I’ve signed up as a supporter on their ‘oarsome’ website. Please join me!

From interest.co.nz:

Poor management and the pressures of massive debts obtained during rapid expansion meant this farm was so poorly managed that none of the staff trained the calves to drink milk, allowing them to die of dehydration in a muddy pen even though their trough was often full.

And this is not the first time:

MAF’s inspectors were called in to this farm and others in the Crafar Farms group many times in recent years, yet this and others like it were allowed to keep operating.

Crafar Farms pleaded guilty to 56 charges of neglecting dozens of dead and dying cows at one of its Hawkes Bay farms in September 2006, but was fined just NZ$200 and allowed to continue operating, Hawkes Bay Today reported.

$200! Haha. The cost / time of driving to court and back is worse than the fine

This is what growth at all costs gets you. Thankfully most farmers are nothing like the Crafars. Clearly MAF is pretty spineless, aye?

Read the full story on interest.co.nz – the comments at the bottom are really good. Lots of farmers telling their stories, and well informed opinion.

Wildings at Craigieburn. Photo by www.flickr.com/photos/mollivan_jon/

The Department of Conservation battles every year to push back the spreading tide of wilding pines, spread as seedlings from poorly-located pine plantations. A lot of them are pinus contorta, written off years ago as not even useful for timber. They encroach on regenerating native forests and other ecosystems such as tussock lands and left alone can completely dominate. The problem is widespread east of the Southern Alps, from Southland to Marlborough, as well as in the Kaweka Forest Park (near Napier) and the Central Plateau. As well as threatening native biodiversity and iconic landscapes like those around Aoraki/Mt Cook, it has economic costs too. It reduces productive values of grazing land and, unchecked, will reduce the volume of water entering our hydro lakes.

However, controlling wilding pines on the 210,000ha of conservation land that is at risk is turning out to be an expensive job for DOC. On top of the cost of staff and transport and chainsaws and herbicide, they are now being charged a deforestation carbon penalty by MAF. Control of these weeds for the public benefit is being hit by the same rules as private companies who convert forestry to dairy.

For the first six months of this year, this cost DOC $811,000 – a large amount for a department that has already had its budget for this year cut by $13.5 million. That money could have saved some endangered species, increased the area of land under pest control,  or – got rid of more wilding pines. The irony is that DOC’s pest control efforts for browsing mammals like goats and possums increases (or maintains) carbon stored in our native forests, but they get no carbon credit for that.

Because of this perverse disincentive to deal with wilding pines, DOC has apparently suspended all wilding pine control; meanwhile the pines continue to spread and grow and the problem worsens.

If National wants to get just one thing right in its apology for an emissions trading system it intends to legislate for this week, they could stop this ridiculous attack on our conservation lands.

The Mohaka River has a Water Conservation Order on it. However its quality is declining. One tributary comes from the volcanic plateau where land has been converted from forests to industrial-sized dairy farms. [See my earlier post of Fish and Game's underwater video showing the mixing of the polluted Taharua into the pristine Mohaka waters.]

One of the Taharua farms is a Crafar farm and has been convicted of illegal effluent discharge in the past and given a record $37,500 fine at that time [now surpassed by the $90,000 fine for a Waikato Crafar farm].

However, the Hawke’s Bay Regional Council is grappling with the problem that even full compliance with effluent discharge rules will not arrest the decline of the water quality. The Chair has written that:

…science now strongly suggests that three large intensive dairy farms, on a small catchment with light volcanic soils, are overloading the Taharua stream with nutrients, which is then detrimentally affecting the Mohaka River, particularly in its upper reaches.

Baybuzz recently wrote about a Council meeting where this was discussed.

In a meeting yesterday full of promising aspirations to clean up the Tukituki and allocate its water, to rescue the Taharua River from nutrient overload, and to “engage” dairy farmers in the Bay, our Regional Councillors just couldn’t bring themselves to utter the word “regulate” … as in require land use practices that would mitigate unacceptable water pollution. Even when posed as a “last resort” option to deal with the hard cases.

Haven’t we learned?
If we don’t regulate builders, we get water-logged homes.
If we don’t regulate financial institutions, we get fleeced.
If we don’t regulate medical practitioners, we get maimed or worse.
In each of these cases, we legislate formal standards and then enforce them.

The HBRC Chair Alan Dick replied that the Council is willing to regulate, but only the “effects of land use activities and the consequent non point source discharges that are generated”. However, when regulating effect is not enough, regulating cause is needed. Sadly, an attempt to get the Council to agree to simply investigate regulating land-use was rejected.

These soils are simply not suitable for dairy environmentally, or economically given that 2 of the 3 farms are apparently now in receivership. It seems a good opportunity for the Council or Government to buy them and plant some sustainable forestry.

The decision of the Council is to be considered by the whole Council this Wednesday. The Mohaka is a national treasure – Water Conservation Order are for “nationally outstanding” waterbodies – so it is quite appropriate for all Kiwis who love the river to have a say, not just those who live in Hawkes Bay. The Council needs to strongly regulate cause and effect to clean up the Mohaka. You can email the Chair of the HBRC - Alan Dick .

Baybuzz also reported that at the recent HBRC meeting, someone called Simon Lusk commented:

Councillors should be aware that the interests of a limited few to make a profit out of a public good is not a platform that has lead to enduring electability. Voters in NZ and overseas have taken direct action at the ballot box to protect water.

Hear hear!

PM says “Of course, [PKE] has some impact”

First, the Prime Minister changed his tune. He initially lept to parrot Fonterra and FedFarmers by saying: “It’s a waste product, in my opinion it’s not leading to deforestation and on that basis I have no intention of intervening.” But in answer to questions from Russel he said, “Of course, it has some impact; the Government does not deny that”.

This shift was because Russel presented the evidence (as he had done weeks earlier) that PKE’s real and proportional values, and the level of NZ demand, “significantly add to the profitability of [the palm] industry and helps fuel its expansion into virgin rainforest across South-east Asia”:

• New Zealand paid $317 million for palm kernel in 2008
• PKE contributes up to 15 percent of the income stream of the palm oil industry [We've asked the PM for the source of his 1.5%, and checking our up-to-15%]
• Daniel Cheow, the managing director of a Malaysian palm kernel exporter called Palmbase, said that palm kernel prices “have shot up as demand is coming in much faster than expected, which in part is a result of the dramatic increase in demand coming from New Zealand”
• Diesel is a “by-product” of the petrol industry, but we don’t downplay its value and contribution to greenhouse gas emissions
• The World Bank withdrew lending to Fonterra’s kernel partner Wilma last week because of its role in rainforest destruction
• Fonterra subsidiary RD1′s own comments that the price of palm kernel is ‘driven by demand’.

Incidentally, the PM also took an unusual step of inciting protest: “I look forward to the Greens and Greenpeace picketing supermarkets [about palm oil], if they really want to stop deforestation.” Nice.

International press spot-light

Second, the Greenpeace action in Tauranga, and the pressure on Fonterra’s use of PKE since the Sunday Star Times expose a month ago, has rippled through the international media. Reuters, BBC, AFP, AP, ABC/Radio Australia, Reuters India, Chile TV, ChinaThe Canadian Press, even the Scotsman and the Belfast Telegraph. And the USA Today.

If the facts are unpalatable for Fonterra and the Government, the international media spotlight will have got their attention.

“I feel a change coming on” said Dylan

It may be that the “Greenpeace protest won’t shift Fonterra or PM” (as Stuff put it), but the protest, plus international media spotlight, plus the evidence, already has.

The solution is simple: use our own supplementary grain and maize feeds, supporting our farmers, reducing biosecurity risks, reducing current account deficit by $313m, saving the rainforests and showing the world we can live up to ‘clean and green’.

The World Bank has withdrawn funding for the palm oil sector including the Wilmar company that supplies [PDF] palm kernel to Fonterra. The World Bank is not satisfied that the palm plantations they loaned to in parts of the developing world met acceptable standards for sustainability. Congratulations to the Forest Peoples Programme and other groups such as Greenpeace for the excellent activism and lobbying on this issue.

As a forests campaigner I am delighted at any moves for reassessment by the funders of planet-wrecking. The wholesale destruction of tropical rainforests in places like Sumatra, Kalimantan and West Papua has accelerated since the rush to produce palm oil. Fonterra and New Zealand dairy farms are some of the largest customers for palm kernel on the planet, which is a co-product of the palm oil plantations. They need to stop and think about their responsibilities.

The illegal and unsustainable logging which precedes the plantations must stop.  The palm oil boom has made it even tougher to prevent the extinction of rare plants and animals which depend on tropical rainforest. Then there is the small matter of the 60 million indigenous people world wide who depend on the integrity of forest ecosystems. Rainforest destruction is our loss in terms of climate change and biodiversity, but forest people are also hit by the immediate front-line loss of homes, food supplies, culture and future.

It is about time that the World Bank slowed down the funding of deforestation and demanded robust certification of all products connected to its funding programmes. Their action signals to industrial dairy, corporates that market palm products and concerned citizens that all products from the tropical rainforest areas of the world need careful scrutiny. It is not easy to verify that timber or palm products come from socially and ecologically sustainable sources, but consumers can start by asking questions.

This destructive industry is attempting to claim green credibility, but with little success. The English Advertising Standards Authority has just upheld  a complaint by Friends of the Earth of misleading advertising by Malaysian Palm Oil companies. An advertisement claiming palm oil to be The Green Answer was found to be untrue.

The World Bank has signalled change with their cheque-books and we can also do our bit. In this country, and globally, Fonterra needs to examine the use of palm kernel as an animal feed, just like Cadbury did with palm oil recently after intense public pressure.

I’m confident that New Zealanders are also keen to reject illegal logging. Fortunately, Parliament has an opportunity to stand up against rainforest destruction by voting for my Member’s Bill, the Customs and Excise (Sustainable Forestry) Bill, which will regulate the trade at the border. The Bill will be in the House at the end of this month so I’m asking you to remind the Government of Aotearoa New Zealand how to vote for the forests.

The Mohaka River has to be the jewel in the crown of Hawkes Bay trout fisheries, yet the upper reaches of this magnificent river are in decline due mainly to intense dairy farming and the subsequent effluent run-off.

One of its tributaries is the Taharua River, into which flows pollution from a large industrial dairy farm – a famous one in fact. Taharua Ltd’s owner Crafarms has been convicted multiple times, with the most recent just a fortnight ago.

To illustrate the effect of dairy pollution on waterways, a Hawke’s Bay Fish and Game officer has posted this video showing the change in water quality of the Mohaka River above and below where the Taharua flows into it.

As Baybuzz wrote yesterday:

The source? This small area [the Taharua catchment] is home to a third of the [HB] region’s total dairy herd, some 9,000 dairy cows. Saturate a free-draining pumice soil with that many cows and the situation is right for the increased nutrient levels observed in the upper reaches of the river. …

[Fish and Game officer] Maxwell notes that the Mohaka is the only river in Hawke’s Bay supposedly protected by a Water Protection Order, yet it appears to be deteriorating … in part because the Regional Council lacks the appropriate mechanisms in its Resource Management Plan to regulate the land use that is the suspected cause.

The solution? Upping pollution fines – one positive part of National’s first RMA Bill. Strengthening the RMA – the opposite to what the RMA Bill does. Strengthening and expanding Water Conservation Orders. And some political will to back up Ministers’ bark with some bite.

RadioNZ’s Insight doco at 8am was on carbon offsetting. Reporter Ian Telfer narrated a well-rounded look at the benefits and risks inherent in the largely-unregulated voluntary carbon market. Includes Jeanette Fitzsimons. Podcast here.

On TVNZ’s 9am Q&A show, Guyon Espiner interviewed Minister Smith on climate change targets. The show’s panel was well-informed – made up of  former Minister Simon Upton, political scientist Terese Arseneau and our own Jeanette Fitzsimons.

Frog will look in a later post at the new NZIER/Infometrics economic analysis of the ‘cost’ of a 40%announced by the Minister, but it seems to again ignore the economic benefits and opportunities of moving to a low-carbon economy, the long-term threat of climate change to the whole economy, and the threat to NZ’s premium brand if we don’t set a responsible 2020 target. Jeanette noted that the Government has yet to do an assessment of what NZ’s emissions reduction options are possible and their costs and benefits, so the economic analyses rolled out are just straw-men to make it all seem too hard. A bit like the All Blacks deciding to play for a draw just cause the Spingboks forward pack weighs more than theirs.

The Minister also pointed to the importance of supporting low-carbon technology transfer to developing countries, but seems reluctant to recognise that a responsible 2020 target would allow NZ to facilitate that through assisted emissions reductions offshore. Story and video here.

Last, RadioNZ’s Sunday Group panel on “Irrigating the Mackenzie Country” [not online yet, but will be here] held an informative debate about the impacts of massive irrigation in this iconic dryland landscape, including the threats to tourism, water quality, and biodiversity. Recommended listening.

So much good stuff, I might need a Sunday nap!

The Green MPs personally pay to offset their flights through carboNZero, choosing native forest regeneration projects like the Hinewai Reserve on Banks Peninsula as preferred use of the credits. Photo credit – EBEX21.

Federated Farmers believes the hypocrisy of environmental lobbyists has been revealed by their silence on urban pollution.

“Yesterday, farmers learned that raw sewerage and heavy metals are being pumped into Wellington Harbour. But environmentalists like ‘hook and bullet’ have only vented their fury today, not on dirty cities as you would expect, but on the tired dirty dairying lie,” says Lachlan McKenzie, Federated Farmers Dairy Chairman.

This despite ‘environmental lobbyist’ Russel Norman’s twin press releases – on dirty dairying and Wellington Harbour!

• Fonterra must act on dirty dairying to protect New Zealand commented on another conviction for dairy pollution and the need for Fonterra to take some responsibility.
• Central govt leaving councils in the poo commented specifically on Wellington Harbour and the need for Government to take some responsibility for such urban pollution issues.

Hunting and fishing advocate, Fish and Game, commented on the dirty dairying conviction, but not on the harbour sewage. However, their mandate is over freshwater fish and gamebird habitats, so it is only logical they didn’t comment on Wellington Harbour, just as they didn’t comment on bottom trawling either.

The Feds’ aggro response suggests they’re in denial. They repeated their selective hearing on water quality science, completely ignoring the latest report’s conclusion that:

The key findings … are that water quality is generally degraded in the selected dairy catchments, particularly with respect to faecal and nutrient contamination.

Yet dirty dairying is a lie, they claim. This, despite the evidence, despite various Ministers’ challenges to dairying to lift its environmental performance, and the National Government making reform of water management a priority because, amongst other things:

Water quality is declining in many areas, particularly in lowland rivers, streams, lakes and groundwaters, which threatens biodiversity, community and cultural values, the coastal environment, and freshwater and inshore fisheries.

‘Environmental lobbyists’ will accept criticism if we get our facts wrong or are genuinely one-eyed and anti-rural, but the fact is that we are constantly engaged in both rural and urban environmental issues, and we highlight good practice as well as bad.

It’s often acknowledged that the urban-rural divide is growing in New Zealand – e.g. in the recent climate change target meetings – but it is not helpful for the major farming lobby to seek to deepen the rift with such unreasonable attacks on those who advocate good management of public resources. Fortunately, reasoned collaboration in the Land and Water Forum, including both Fed Farmers and ‘environmental lobbyists’, are working together to find solutions to both urban and rural water issues.

Fed Farmers Dairy chairman Lachlan McKenzie addressed the organisation’s AGM  yesterday and made some quite ridiculous and irresponsible comments on the progress that farmers have made in cleaning up waterways.

This time last year, Fish and Game New Zealand was calling on the government to regulate production in the agricultural sector. My how the tables have turned. NIWA and DairyNZ’s last report showed that water quality is no longer declining in the intensive dairy catchments despite a major increase in animals. Now that the scientific evidence is on our side maybe Fish and Game can actually focus on its real job… All I can say is that it is a shame our most vocal critics suffer from selective hearing when it comes to the great strides dairy farmers have made in recent years.

Hmmm… selective hearing – that’s not good? Well, let’s have a look at the NIWA report that Mr McKenzie cites….

The results of the NIWA survey on river quality released last week show very clearly that as agricultural use of land increases, water quality is deteriorating. Of the 77 monitored sites tested, nitrogen levels rose at 52 sites and fell at none. Phosphorous levels increased at 22 sites and fell at only nine. Lead authors Deborah Ballantine and Robert Davies-Colley say that while there have been ‘spot’ improvements, overall the quality of water in New Zealand rivers continues to get worse. They say the links between deteriorating water quality and agriculture are clear.

Mr McKenzie is the one selectively reading the science. Just yesterday Environment Minister Dr Nick Smith released two new reports on freshwater quality, one of them a baseline study on at water quality in dairy farming catchments. The Minister himself shot-down Mr McKenzie argument:

There is a significant water quality issue emerging in areas of intensive farming, particularly dairying… It is no surprise that the report identifies degraded water quality in these areas and reinforces the need for further Government initiatives.

I don’t for a moment diss the great work that some farmers are doing to take responsibility for the impact of their stock on waterways. Jeanette has been visiting as many sustainable farming operations as she can in recent months to learn what responsible and innovative farmers are doing, and earlier this week, Kevin Hague blogged on a great community initiative in Golden Bay that has seen the Aorere River – a heavily farmed catchment – dramatically cleaned up to the point that aquaculture farms at the mouth of the river are healthy again.

Despite these initiatives, water quality in farmed catchments across the country is still declining. Until that trend genuinely reverses, there is no point using selective science to pretend otherwise. In fact it is grossly irresponsible to say that “the tables have turned”, and that “the scientific evidence is on our side’ when the trend is the opposite and in dire need of reversing. The Prime Minister and Minister of Agriculture made this quite clear at the recent launch of the Dairy Strategy.

Mr McKenzie is doing NZ farmers a disservice with his misleading statements.

Unfortunately, after three years of successful service to the organics sector, the modest $2.15 million funding has now run out, and the National government has not provided any further funding for the OAS. Was it money well spent, and what does the future hold for the sector?

In 2005, the area of NZ land under organic production was 45,000ha. By 2007, this had increased to 65,000ha – that’s over 20% growth a year. The 2008 figures have yet to be compiled, but Biogro alone certifies 65,000ha, and to that we can add organic land certified by the other 3 certifiers AsureQuality,  OrganicFarmNZ and Demeter. As a proportion of total agricultural land, NZ still lags well behind European countries, but the sector in NZ is certainly a fast growing one.

A 2007 study into the value of the organics sector to the NZ economy found that it generated $120million domestically, and $210million in exports, per year. And that doesn’t include the ecosystem services that an organic farm provides – more soil carbon retained, cleaner water and more biodiversity.

In the pipfruit sector, 10% of production by volume is organic. But this equates to 15% of the pipfruit sector by value because of the price premium (33%) commanded by organic pipfruit.

Organic sheep and beef meat also gets a strong premium, helping organic farmers through a time of low prices and droughts. Apparently, 20% of organic lamb on sale in the UK is from NZ, and our major meat exporter Silver Fern Farms has been advertising for organic lamb suppliers. An SFF statement last year noted that their organic premiums were holding despite the recession.

Looking at the dairy industry, we find that Fonterra is unable to find enough organic milk suppliers to satisfy its demand. Fonterra says it wants to grow its number of suppliers from 80 now to 350-400 farmers by 2013.

So, the organic sector is a valuable market for NZ producers, one that commands a good premium for a high quality product, improves environmental health, and is growing rather rapidly. Indeed, the global $60 billion organics market is growing at between 10 – 20 percent annually according to Organics Aotearoa NZ.

Like all sectors, organics needs specialist advisory support to continue growing. Because it spans across most types of farming and growing, and is a production style that requires specialist experience and knowledge, it isn’t well served by the existing support bodies, although organic farmers pay the same producer levies as other farmers. Farm service and product suppliers (like fertiliser and agrichemical salespeople), who commonly offer support to conventional farmers, don’t have the experience and knowledge of organics production to do the same for organic farmers. So organic producers fall through the gaps. Hence the need for the OAS.

Without good support for farmers through an OAS, the ability for the sector to continue to expand – to provide more jobs, economic activity and a healthier environment – to meet export market demands is in jeopardy.

And, the Greens continue to promote a Green New Deal stimulus measure to spread fencing and planting across the country, to create jobs and restore waterways at the same time.

Today, the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA) has research has provided further evidence of the benefits of such approaches. Over to NIWA [link to come]:

Animal fencing and trees needed for stream restoration

The importance of tree plantings along streams to provide shade for water environments and of fencing waterways off from animals has been reinforced in new NIWA research. …

Case studies published in the latest Journal of Marine and Freshwater Research show that it takes very little time to destroy riparian margins with loss of habitat for several invertebrate and fish species. However, it takes a long time, probably more than 20 years, to completely restore a native forest stream.

Three case studies demonstrate that, while water quality could be boosted relatively quickly, plants and animals were slower to take advantage of the better conditions, and colonisation was more rapid in smaller than larger streams. …

Planting riparian margins and fencing to keep out grazing stock was important to maintain aquatic habitats, the studies showed. Changing highly erodible land from pastoral use to forestry plantings also had beneficial impact on stream life, by providing shade, lowering stream temperature to levels plants and animals liked better, and by removing livestock impacts on the waterways.

Readers of this blog will recall that one of the projects that we included in our Green New Deal Stimulus Package – what we would do to stimulate the economy and restore the environment if we were the Government right now – was a $200m per annum investment over 9 years to protect rivers and streams with fencing and riparian planting.

Last week the urgency of this work was once more brought home by two new reports highlighting the speed with which freshwater quality has been degraded in recent years.

What has been achieved here is extraordinary. Nestled between Kahurangi National Park and the sea, the Aorere catchment is home to around 500 people, and the principle land use has been dairying. The river flows into a bay that is home to a number of mussel farms. Not so long ago tensions in Golden Bay were running high, with familiar tensions between dairy farmers, greenies and Fish and Game, augmented by a further difficulty where the aquaculture industry claimed that E. coli contamination of the river from dairy farming rendered their industry on the verge of closure.

Then something extraordinary happened. The dairy farmers in the catchment got together to do something about the problem. While not everyone was an immediate enthusiast, all agreed to be part of a project to clean up the waterways. The project has been supported by Landcare Trust and MAF’s Sustainable Farming Fund, and has involved collaboration between the dairy and the mussel farmers, scientists and technical experts from multiple agencies, and the Golden Bay Streamcare Group. This latter group comprised an amazing group of volunteers who have raised seedlings, planted them out along stream and river banks and then gone back to release and care for the plantings.

In the space of a few short years the improvement in water quality has been brilliant. This can be seen in return of biodiversity, but is perhaps even better measured by the effect on aquaculture: days where water quality conditions allowed mussel harvest improved markedly from 28% before the project to 80% now. The riparian plantings are now several metres tall in some places, and the return of bird life has been noticeable. One of the farmers I spoke to said that he hadn’t noticed any productivity changes – up or down – from the changes, but there had been animal welfare gains with greater shade for the stock from the riparian plantings.

This group is going to continue work in the Aorere and believe that more is achievable, but their model is also for export, with members of the group talking about the project with farmer groups in other parts of the country, and a new batch of Sustainable Farming funding just approved by MAF for further work in the Aorere and to use the same approach in the Rai catchment north-east of Nelson.

One of the interesting questions this all raises, of course, is what the conditions are that will best facilitate the uptake of this model in other parts of New Zealand. While those involved were anxious to say that there was nothing special about them, attempts to get the model going in a neighbouring catchment have been unsuccessful.

A couple of the farmers there took me to task about our criticism of the Clean Streams Accord and their perception that our criticism of “dirty dairying” was unfair and unhelpful. On the other hand, my observation was that several of the farmers I spoke with identified the very uncomfortable standoff that had arisen and that negative community perceptions about dairying practices as catalysts for action. Would the project have happened without these? I’d like to talk with these farmers some more about that.

What we all do agree on is the huge value of bringing everyone together and talking with those we have disagreements with – maybe a positive sign for the collaborative governance model. We also all agree on the great value of highlighting and celebrating the positive. Jeanette’s currently out there visiting farms that use good sustainability practices, so that we can do exactly that. In the meantime, it would be hard to go past the inspirational nature of the Aorere Catchment Project and all of the individuals and groups who have been associated with it.