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Cream could soon turn sour

We are more open to being shamed because ... per capita our performance has been particularly bad.

Anear $13 billion economic boost is heading the way of regional New Zealand. Yet we are days away from being invited, from the other side of an imperilled planet, to hang our heads rather than smile.

In truth we have reason to do both. Fonterra’s announcement of a record forecast milk payment for the season will be emphatically welcome throughout so much of the heartland, where it’s desperately needed.

It’s evidence that the changing of the guard at New Zealand’s largest company a few years ago has paid off handsomely in financial terms, during these economically and socially troubled times.

Yet the announcement powerfully underscores our reliance on dairying, and does so on the brink of the United Nations’ Cop26 conference in Glasgow.

There the global impact of intensive dairying, and our country’s lack of progress in lowering emissions, are likely to be highlighted with reproachful rhetoric, much of which will be justified, but perhaps with a self-serving undercurrent to draw attention from other nations’ own failures.

New Zealand is far from alone in its abject lack of progress during the past 30 years in living up to its pledge to cut climate pollution. But we are all the more open to being shamed because, in spite of our perceived ecological halo, on a per capita level our performance has been particularly bad.

New Zealand goes into that conference with ample reason to be chastened, but more reason to be purposeful. The latter applies not only to our Government but to producers and consumers throughout the country.

Fonterra is a figure of gigantic consequence, not only through the economic importance that comes from producing about 30 per cent of the world’s dairy exports, but also the use of so much farmland following the dramatic rates of land conversion to dairying that this generation has seen.

That expansion, price spikes and all, is coming to an end. The Climate Change Commission has suggested environmental constraints could mean dairy cattle numbers fall 13 per cent from 2019 levels by 2030.

It’s been a volatile time, even by industry standards, with this month’s free trade deal with the United Kingdom, the second-largest importer of our dairy products by value, featuring among the better news for suppliers.

It’s a market that has shown itself willing to pay well for the New Zealand brand. This is both a strength, given the opportunities for innovation, and a vulnerability if our sustainability credentials suffer in the eyes of premiumpaying consumers.

Fonterra is committing, as it must, to moving more of its milk into higher-value specialist products through its food service business, supplying bakeries, coffee shops, and supermarkets. It is investing in research into nutrition science highlighting areas of competitive advantage – particularly health and wellness, with an eye to the ageing worldwide population.

Here it sees a market for heightened interest in the nutritional benefits of probiotics, proteins and complex lipids for immunity and digestion, mobility and cognition.

But dairy’s reputation is, at the same time, sorely assailed for environmental reasons. How Fonterra, the nation, and the international community react has become a question, the implications of which make $13b payouts look like pocket change.

Even then, the megabuck consequences can never be separated from the climatic and environmental imperatives that are upon us right now.

Opinion

en-nz

2021-10-27T07:00:00.0000000Z

2021-10-27T07:00:00.0000000Z

https://stuff.pressreader.com/article/281883006550120

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