I hadn’t complained to the ASA before and found it a highly professional organisation.
Last week it upheld my complaint and I’m looking forward to Greenpeace removing all billboards and apologising to both the fertiliser co-operatives and farmers.
Needless to say, I’m not holding my breath for the latter.
The Greenpeace defence is interesting, concentrating as it did on nitrogen in waterways.
Last week I wrote about the myths over nitrogen. Not that it will concern Greenpeace. Mind you, I was quoting the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, not something that might have fallen from the sky like seagull droppings.
Simply, the Greenpeace defence said intensive dairy farming and the use of synthetic nitrogen fertiliser are having a severe, negative impact on the health of waterways in New Zealand.
It added Ravensdown and Ballance sell 98% of fertilisers in NZ.
That encouraged two thoughts. The first was that the OECD describes nitrogen as one of the most important elements in life on earth, adding about half the world’s population relies on nitrogen fertilisers for food.
So, what does Greenpeace really want – for half the world’s population to starve?
The other factor is that I can put nitrogen on my land by using chicken litter, a product over which the fertiliser co-operatives have absolutely no control.
I can also intensify using palm kernel. The fert companies don’t control that either.
Interestingly, Greenpeace didn’t think much of the Fertmark initiative either, which I found ignorant in the extreme. I wonder if it really understood it. While it’s at it, it could bone up on Spreadmark as well.
The majority of the complaints board said the advertisement is misleading because the message was over-simplified and potentially unclear. It gave the impression individual fertiliser companies are responsible for the pollution of NZ waterways.
I agree.
Forming a submission to back my complaint was testing but I got there.
I made the point that if you accept the premise that Ravensdown and Ballance pollute rivers you’d then have to accept the premise that Toyota and Ford kill people.
Our road toll last year was 379 and many of those fatalities would have involved Toyota or Ford vehicles.
The claim is obviously nonsense, as was the Greenpeace statement.
I also made the point that there is no proof fertilisers pollute rivers.
Animals can and last year sewerage outflow from local government increased a massive 379% according to an independent survey by Water NZ.
Also, according to the Prime Minister’s former science adviser Sir Peter Gluckman, some water bodies are in a good state but others have been significantly compromised by agriculture intensification, urban expansion, industrial pollution, hydro-electric development or the effects of drought.
Nowhere was either Ballance or Ravensdown mentioned.
Gluckman went on to say our most polluted waterways are in urban, not rural areas, and the fertiliser co-operatives have no control over anything that happens there.
In addition, there is a NIWA report to the Ministry for the Environment that claims the impact of rainfall means storm water picks up sediment, rubbish, contaminants and dog and bird droppings.
Again, that’s absolutely nothing to do with agriculture.
Further, as only 15% of our waterways run through dairy land it is nigh impossible for a fertiliser company to pollute a river and the hash tag, Too Many Cows, is according to whom?
My additional point to the ASA was that there is no proof fertiliser is a pollutant.
In NZ our soils aren’t naturally fertile. Without cobalt the Central Plateau would be a desert and I defy anyone to farm without phosphate.
That’s the harsh reality behind the prosperity most Kiwis enjoy.
The reality of fertiliser application is also obviously unknown to Greenpeace.
Our fertiliser representatives are highly trained. Overseer is a valued tool. Having said that, I’m pleased more resources are being applied to make it even better.
Farmers test to find out their fertiliser deficiencies and apply fertiliser only to remedy them.
The Spreadmark initiative means farmers apply fertiliser exactly.
Farming is a tight business. Farmers can’t afford to apply fertiliser at whim. It is a well thought out process.
So, I’m really pleased an independent organisation has found the Greenpeace billboard is wrong in fact.
It found the Greenpeace advertisement misleading.
The Greenpeace reaction will be interesting. Will it have constructive dialogue with farmers and form a genuine partnership to continue to clean up the environment.
Conversely, will it continue to sit in its offices taking cheap and inaccurate pot shots at farmers and ignore the environment?
