I don't think there is ever going to be one single solution. Farmers will have to think about how to best utilise the land that they have appropriately.

Not all land is economical or practical for cropping. Plenty of farmland in NZ falls into that category. Similarly, there's plenty of farmland that probably shouldn't be used for grazing and should be cropped.

Oh yeah, agreed... diversity is only sensible although we do tend to throw all our eggs in one basket. I’m thinking of what the Dutch are doing more than anything though, high intensity indoor cropping in all weather. I read an article in an Air New Zealand magazine a month or so ago featuring a start up doing that sort of thing on a small scale in a Wellington basement, supplying green leaf produce to the food industry. There’s a big future in this sort of thinking and on a national scale the opportunities are enormous, especially with our abundance of clean energy to power the tech

Yup. Some point of difference anyway. That's why I mention Organic a few pages back, it wouldn't do much for the methane emissions but it can be passed as a sustainable model of best intention, probably debatable if there's value added in that, I believe so but would probably be an easy answer for Hareway. If there are other possibilities then look at everything.

Either way, its time for a good look at what we're doing. Having the conversation at least, and planning an exit route.

The comment GS makes is one we all know about, you have to assume the rest of the world will learn it at some stage too.

I have a client that grows "micro greens" in his backyard of traditional old 1/4 acre. Garnish on plates for the restaurant industry.

Cost of startup practically zilch. He just grows under those pvc half round tunnels.

Yeah, I thought about that myself. If you have the space it’s a definite earner.

Organic farming isn't necessarily any more sustainable than non-organic farming.

There's definitely some benefit. They probably aren't coating the place in nitrogen for starters. I think it'd be hard to argue organic farming is as destructive or doesn't make a difference to the carbon footprint of the intensive dairy farming we're into currently. Could you offset the argument of greenhouses gas emissions of dairy farming / dry stock by producing an organic product? I reckon it'd be a lot easier to convince a skeptical population eating an organic product is better than a GE cow produced in a lab grown on GE modified grasses, but that's just me.

I mean right now people actively look for organic produce to live on. Did the world even have an organic industry in the 1950's?

Not saying organic is the answer, I don't know enough, but I know folk are looking at it. I do and I was practically born on a dairy farm.

Organic in the 50s?

Dude, it was still mostly organic then I get your point but the saturation of chemical enhancement has been relatively recent.

While organic is appealing I feel it’s something of a diversion. We can grow a shedload or healthy food with having to go organic. I’d agree with earlier points made about embracing GM food more in NZ in line with that. A lot of the opposition to GM is pretty baseless and we need to produce food efficiently. Livestock as food source isn’t the way forward.

It's pretty obvious if you compare a small organic farm to a huge dairy farm that of course the larger, more intensive farm raising animals will have a larger impact on the environment. But an organic farm is not innately better for the environment than an equivalent non-organic farm just because it uses "naturally" sourced fertilisers, herbicides and pesticides. I put "naturally" in brackets because these guys are putting stuff like guano on their fields instead of superphosphate, which is made from fossilised guano, and fishmeal instead of ammonium nitrate etc, which is converted by the plants and soil into nitrates so it all comes out the same anyway.

Both will leach nitrogen and to a smaller degree phosphorus if they're not carefully managed. It's an inescapable fact that crops need nitrogen and phosphorus to grow, and they are gradually depleted from the soil over time. You can reduce the use of fertiliser with some clever crop rotations but you'll need some eventually otherwise you'll end up with barren land. The expectation that an organic conversion will solve all of the water problems is misplaced, I reckon there is much more to be gained by cleverer farm, pasture and water management and that's the area the likes of Fonterra have had by far the most success in in the last 15 years in terms of reducing the impact of dairying on water quality.

On a completely different “political” topic...

I’m off to Japan to play in the New Zealand Parliamentary Rugby World Cup!

Congrats, not much beats that really. Presumably you get a seat at all the All Black games?

Alas only the opening game v Boks....have to get back home for work the next day.

Nice!

Lot of interest over the ditch in the .5% rate drop . Basically feel that its an unfair start in the race to the bottom f or currencies . With the need for 4 -5% of drops to restart an economy out of recession looks like NZ will be QEing, running negative interest rates and bail ins with the best of them. Australia to follow.

Brenton Tarrants hateful letter.



Just to confirm the construe of what hateful reaches to.

Hardly the call to arms some commentators have been making it out to be.

It would be nice to see him cut off completely and starved of oxygen but then you'd have the human rights lawyers crawling all over it and he would probably end up getting even more publicity.

Riparian planting- but Fonterra et al don't want to know about it.

Fascism Today:

How many Judicial procedures are currently being held in "secret" , whereby the Public interest /"right to know' about "Crimes" and how our system of Justice and Governance is investigating and applying the laws of the land for the benefit of society.

I'm deeply concerned that a Royal Commission of Enquiry into the circumstances leading up to and the responses to the tragic massacre in Christchurch are being conducted beyond public scrutiny.

More on this later.

Of more immediate interest is the utterly bizarre circumstances surrounding the Police and their investigation into Hager/Whaleoil etc and their obtaining of an individuals bank records without search warrant or legal production order.

Currently , Martin Bradbury , Journalist is challenging the legal veracity of the Tribunal investigating the alleged breach , which is conducting the investigation in secrecy and is prepared to hear "secret" evidence from the Police/Crown which they are refusing to reveal to Bradbury and his counsel .

As a consequence Bradbury/Counsel have no means to present a counter submission /argument as they are completely unaware of what facts/allegations the Crown is making.

It's complex, and like many I'm not a 100% supporter of Martin Bradbury, but he is a journalist many years experience and he , like the rest of his trade have an important role in our society.

If it looks like, smells like , tastes like Fascism can the case be made that we are rapidly becoming a society without checks and balances to ensure that individual rights are not completely erased.



https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2019/08/14/kafkas-shadow-my-hearing-against-nz-police-secret-trials/

I refuse to read it. Glad it's spoilered and a shame it was posted here at all, quite frankly.

Bradbury a journalist of many years? What publications has he written for other than blogs? Rip it Up magazine The one they used to give out free at McDonalds...

To be fair, Ripitup was a decent mag back in the day. Just got ruined with the internet and they turned to advertising to try rescue the collapse, which just aided in sending it further off the edge.

That was back when "The Listener" was a thing, covering X3 TV channels

So if it's not written on paper it's not journalism?

Regardless of his Journalistic qualities or qualifications , he is most definitely an integral part of the 4th estate in NZ .

It wouldn't matter if he was flipping burgers at Mcdonalds , what he is going through in the absurd machinations of spook law is not to be ignored or dismissed.

These people speak in codes. A lot of that letter seems pretty stock standard "how is your day" stuff but I'm willing to bet there is some mild coded language in there that only those terrorists understand. The last line is not even disguised as apparently it is a "call to arms" to white supremacists globally.

Most drystock farms sequesters at least double the carbon from the atmosphere than they produce....so we can expect to be paid for this i presume .
Farming is an easy target but if you start to mention the massive damage being done by Air Travel the room goes a bit quiet , cant miss out on our holidays ...

Basically anything that'll deny us convenience.
It's easy to argue for both too. Dairy and meat is our diet, and planes are how we get to spend 3 weeks in Indonesia instead of 3 weeks getting there on a boat.

I decoded it.

Russia will fall in September leading to a war led by Australian Isis and a great crazy, dirty but beautiful muslim Australian/Russian broad.

Aka Rita Panahi

Pretty sure air travel is more environmentally friendly than seafaring

I know everyone is getting a tad "sensitive" these day, but why?

It is pretty tame tbf

Letter probably should have been blocked, but she is hardly call to arms

Looked but can't see any trustworthy data

Personally would say airlines would be worse as last time I looked a few years ago, the contributed 4% to emissions

NZ as a whole country is 0.17%

I'm no scientist but with the exception of sailing I'd imagine the fact the only resistance aeroplanes encounter is air would make them far more fuel efficient than ships.

Yeah probably

I did look, but can see airlines compared to cars, but no real reliable airlines v shipping that doesn't appear slightly dodge

So that you can sleep soundly at night you should cancel your air ticket knowing you've done your bit to reduce carbon emissions (safe in the knowledge that plane will still fly with an empty seat or somebody else sitting in the seat you gave up).

True. But if he spent the time it would have taken for the flight driving round round the regions stopping cows from burping through "cow hypnosis" he would be saving the world

You have to work it out on a per-tonne basis. A small cargo ship can transport orders of magnitude more cargo than even the biggest cargo planes. You're talking 20,000 tonne v 100 tonne. And that's a small one.

Where it gets a bit iffy

You have to get the plane in the air using jet engines, which takes a lot

Guess it depends on how much emissions there are from diesel compared to aviation fuel

Geezes I can't believe I am even bothered to think about this

It's really not that controversial

So the whole world should abandon air travel?

The Greens telling us to stop flying won't make a sod of difference if I stop traveling by air but the planes keep flying.

We don't have to abandon air travel

Just find either alternative fuels or alternative engines

The US military has recently developed a high grade jet fuel derived from plant biomass instead of coal. A similar product could find itself used in the commercial airfreight and airline industry within the decade.

And there was some American university ( I forget which one) recently developed a working aircraft prototype that flies on electric ion propulsion (no fuel, no moving parts, just a battery). Now that one is probably 50+ years away from becoming anything other than a proof of concept, but you get the point.