Many use mistruths to persuade people agriculture needs to be removed from the New Zealand landscape.
We have ministers in the Government who hate dairy farmers and their legacy is to deal with us.
Many of the statements made by some of these people would be called hate speech had it been directed at a different group of the community but farmers are fair game.
Then we have urban areas that are exempt from the rules agriculture has being happy to work within.
Invercargill City was given a new consent to dump raw sewage into streams at more than 140 sites.
In Queenstown and Wanaka it is acceptable to dump raw sewage into our pristine lakes.
Dunedin just extends its sewage outlet further into the sea,
Wellington dumps raw sewage into the sea.
Palmerston North dumps sewage into the Manawatu River.
Taupo dumps raw sewage into Lake Taupo then the Waikato River.
The Waikato River is swimmable before Hamilton but a disgrace after Hamilton.
At least Auckland recycles the Waikato River water but then pollutes many Auckland beaches with its sewage.
These are just a few of the urban polluters but they think it is acceptable to take generations to fix these blatant environmental disgraces – what hypocrisy.
Then we have the groups that have no idea about environmental impacts of different forms of food production promoting diets that are more harmful to the environment. Take soy milk, for example. Per unit of nutrient the consumer gets its environmental footprint is worse than that of cows’ milk.
Then we get these vegans who don’t understand the environmental footprint of commercial vegetable growing (we used to commercially grow vegetables) is, in many cases, worse than dairy farming.
What planet are some of these people on?
We now have farmers’ children who are afraid to tell their peers they are from a farming family because of the way they will be berated at school by teachers and fellow students.
Then we have those who think the world can do without farmers. Yes, but it would starve to death. I guess that would take care of all the environmental problems humans are causing.
Rural families are proudly spending millions of dollars creating a better environment for Kiwis to be proud of.
Rural families understand the need to have sustainability of our environment and economy for our survival.
Most families want to hand on to the next generation a better business and environment where our families can continue to do their bit for NZ.
I was farming in the eighties and the wellbeing of farming families is now far worse than it was then.
Politicians are not going to get our message out there because we don’t have any voting power so we are going to have to do it ourselves.
Our rural co-ops and sector groups cannot do it because it is just seen a looking after their own patch but they can support us in it.
It is going to take all farming families doing their bit.
We need everybody talking positively about what we do and understanding our importance to our environment, community and country then getting some of these scientific facts out there so our urban friends can support us.
At the moment they are just bombarded with misinformation that we need to counter with scientific facts.
There are plenty of scientific facts out there that support what farming families are doing but we need to get that into people’s minds.
I have to congratulate John Deere on a great commercial it is running. Thank you so much for your initiative.
It is time for farming families to stand up and get the message out there that we are not environmental criminals as some of these groups would have you believe.
If we are to turn the wellbeing of our communities around we need the scientific facts at our fingertips.
Our sector groups and many of our suppling companies have these facts but we need a way to get them distributed to us. Then we, as farming families, have to do our part to share that information.
We don’t need to reinvent the wheel. The facts are all out there we just need to get them distributed.
I am happy to hear from you how best to source and spread these facts but please let’s make it happen.
Yes, that might mean you need to learn how to use Facebook or whatever way you can spread the facts and stories showing your love of your environment and the animals you farm.
Stand up and be proud. We might be small in numbers but we make a huge contribution to NZ.
Supermarkets would be empty with out us.
