When they’re not polluting our rivers or fighting animal welfare laws, our farmers, the ‘guardians of the land’, are opposing having to pay for their greenhouse emissions. Now, with the Earth having just clocked up its warmest 12 months since records began, farmers are scratching their heads at the early start to the summer drought.
Bill English and brother Conner, CEO of Federated Farmers, share a vision for the world. It’s one where the environment and workers are exploited to the hilt in the name of ‘growth’ and the fruits of that ‘growth’ flow to a privileged elite (like the Englishes). Yesterday rich-boy Conner chided the rest of us with a speech titled “There is no free lunch”
So our kiwifruit industry is in peril. PSA may be here to stay, vines may start being burnt today, and a $1.36 billion […]
John Key says that if we don’t let overseas buyers snap up our farmland then land prices will decrease and some over-leveraged farmers will go underwater. And that’s supposedly a bad thing. Key wants us to believe that foreigners putting our farmland out of the reach of Kiwis and making us borrow more from the Aussie banks is a good thing.
In his last column Garth George laments how foods he regularly enjoyed in his childhood (1870s?) are now priced beyond the reach of most New Zealanders. It’s easy to dismiss the complaints of an old man about prices these days but there’s a deeper story: with population growth and resource depletion, there increasingly isn’t enough to go around.
When the 2009 ‘streamlining and simplifying’ amendment to the RMA was rushed through parliament last year, many concerns were raised about new abilities for the Minister for the Environment to use National Environmental Standards (NES) to override local government regulations. Now an NES on forestry is being pushed through. It’s scary stuff.
There has been an interesting ad from Greenpeace running around the site today. It is obviously intended to go viral before the lawyers […]
Lockwood and Nick did good work yesterday. So praise where praise is due: Keep it up boys.
To have power and independence, any country needs a solid economic base. That’s even more true of superpowers/empires. To secure their economic sovereignty they need the raw materials and markets of less powerful countries. They reinforce their economic sovereignty by taking others’. China does it by buying up whole supply chains.
According to Maurice Williamson, we’re all racist. Our concern with foreign investment has nothing to do with the economy, we just hate the Chinese.
Just spotted in the NZ Herald that receivers for the Crafar dairy farm empire have announced that state-owned farmer Landcorp has been unsuccessful in its attempt to buy the properties…
Supermarkets are squeezing producers while marking up the prices of fruit and vegetables by up to 500%. The worst side of capitalism in action. Support your local farmers’ market, and the Green’s call for a supermarket code of conduct.
On Wednesday night John key was in Christchurch. He was met by protesters, angry at the abolition of democracy in Canterbury, and the plans of the newly installed dictatorship to allow over-farming to poison the water and kill the rivers. How did TV news handle the coverage? I think it’s fair to say that it was up to their usual standards…
Live in Canterbury? Value democracy? What are you doing today after work? Come to the ECan protest, 5:30 pm @ ECan office 58 Kilmore St. Because Canterbury is only the beginning…
Our glorious capitalist system should mean farms that can’t handle a bad time fail. Just like any other business. Land gets used for something better. It’s the market. But capitalists don’t really believe in the market. Come the bad times, the farmers want another hand out. So government’s giving them the dole. Yup, the dole.
No Right Turn’s typically forthright take on the sacking of the ECan councillors and the makeup of the government’s appointed directors.
Journos. Obama didn’t meet Key before dinner on a big stage in front of the media because it was just practical. The leaders didn’t stand with awkward grins for the group photo because it was a crucial step in the diplomatic process. This is being done for you. Only you. It is meaningless apart from the fact they know the media will lap it up. They think you’re saps. And you keep proving them right.
Today is the last day to send in your submission on NAWAC’s draft Code of Welfare for Pigs. New Zealand Open Rescue have put out a new video containing footage from many different farms around the country, to remind you why it is important to have your say. You can send a submission using SAFE’s template at www.lovepigs.org.nz.
Recently, and for good reason, New Zealanders and the media have objected to companies using palm oil due the deforestation caused by the palm oil industry. For New Zealand to take such a stance, when our diary industry has a similarly devastating impact on the environment, is hypocritical. We need to clean up our own act if we’re going to criticise others.
Jon Stewart covers developments in the science around making meat without raising and killing an animal. Jon has a laugh of course but […]
The Fed Farmers have used Goff’s speech on monetary policy to have another whinge about beneficiaries, who they reckon are somehow to blame […]
Have a listen to Sean Plunket’s interview this morning with Fed Farmer’s economic spokesperson Philip York. Fed Farmers is calling on the government […]
Following on from yesterdays guest post on World Vegetarian Day, today is World Farm Animal Day. At the end of last year, I […]
The recent news that NZ’s largest dairy farmer allowed calves to dehydrate and starve to death is appalling, but there are much larger […]
I saw one of the Crafar brothers on the TV last night. Crying fake tears over calves that a whistle-blower had revealed were […]
Is its business leaders. There’s Keys, the Fyfes, the Weldons. Who all spend so much money to look good on the covers of […]
The Fast Forward Fund was axed by the NACT government in Feburary. This was a fund that was to be invested and the […]
It’s been said by some of the Government’s supporters that criticism of the Job Summit is nothing more than rantings of the embittered […]
Lawyer Stephen Price has rubbished Fonterra’s claim that the Chinese sub judice status of the Sanlu case prevents Fonterra releasing documentation of their communications. Price […]
Our economy depends on other key resources apart from oil. For instance our farming sector still depends heavily on using phosphates to increase […]
