29 October 2008
Dirty dairy conversions an environmental problem for NZ
Greenpeace's direct actions to highlight environmental problems caused by industrial farming in the central north island
draws attention to results of the Government's failure to include agriculture into the Emissions Trading Scheme along
with other sectors of the economy, says the Green Party.
While the forestry sector now faces a penalty for deforestation, farmers are not paying the carbon costs of the
increased emissions from dairy cows when the land is converted. It's made worse by the fact that the Government's own
enterprise - Landcorp - is carrying out many of the conversions, Greens Co-Leader Jeanette Fitzsimons says.
She says subsidising dairy farming by having the taxpayer cover its climate costs for five years is immediately
capitalised into land values.
"Those conversions will also result in huge nitrogen loads being pumped into the rivers of the central north island, and
farmers are not charged for that either.
"The increased value of land converted to dairying may outweigh the cost of the deforestation penalties the forest
industry has to face. And meanwhile the dairy farmers struggle to make a profit with falling export prices when they
have to cover the cost of those ridiculously high land values," Ms Fitzsimons says.
"One of the reasons dairy conversions are still happening so fast is that National candidates have been telling farmers
they will never have to fund the cost of their emissions. Many farmers I've talked to believe that, under National, New
Zealand would withdraw from Kyoto.
"This is not the message John Key has been giving but he needs to come clean and tell us which of his candidates are
right about their policy."
ENDS