DEEP DIVE: Expanding on many of the issues highlighted in our video ‘How animal agriculture runs New Zealand’, Claire Hamlett delves into the ways animal agriculture exerts an uncompromising control over an entire nation despite its impact on the environment and animals.

New Zealand’s dairy industry has become a leading source of the country’s greenhouse gas emissions, which have hit an all-time high with a 3 per cent rise in 2019, pushing up the overall emissions of the agricultural sector. This is no surprise, considering that the number of dairy cows has increased a massive 82 per cent since 1990, now totalling 6.3 million. 

Though the number of beef cows has declined 15 per cent and sheep by half over the same period, to 3.9 million and 26.8 million respectively, the total numbers of farmed animals in New Zealand are vast - in a country of only 4.8 million people. A sector that big has correspondingly big impacts not only on emissions - animal agriculture accounts for almost half of the country’s total - but also on the physical environment as well as the politics.

Climate

Despite the official data on the dairy sector’s rising emissions, there is little sign that Jacinda Ardern’s government is willing to take any real action to tackle them. A plan to reduce emissions unveiled as part of the new budget says nothing of substance on dairy or animal agriculture more broadly. Even the government’s official climate advisors seem unwilling to take on the dairy sector. In 2021, advice from the government’s Aotearoa Climate Change Commission laid out how to cut emissions by 63 per cent by 2035, but critics said it let dairy off the hook. “The Climate Change Commission’s final plan seems more anxious about placating big dairy than doing what is scientifically necessary to avert the climate crisis,” said Greenpeace NZ campaigner Amanda Larsson.

Industry group DairyNZ pushed back against parts of the Commission’s draft proposals, including its suggestion that the number of all ruminant livestock be reduced by 15 per cent. (Unfairly to the animals, the Commission expected that production could continue at roughly the same rate despite such a reduction.) The final advice contains no target for reducing the number of animals, instead suggesting that farmers could improve on-farm management and consider shifting to less intensive systems like organic dairy.

The industry is also promoting techno-fixes in place of shrinking the national herd. In February of this year, Fonterra announced a partnership with Dutch company Royal DSM, with the aim of trialling the use of a feed additive, which inhibits methane in dairy cows. While the product, Bovaer, has been shown to consistently reduce methane emissions by up to 30 per cent in non-pasture raised cows, it was as yet unknown if it would be effective and viable to farmers in New Zealand's pasture-based system. The dairy giant has also been looking into 'Kowbucha' - probiotic kombucha for cows made from dairy cultures. Researchers hope that the cultures might turn off the gut bacteria in the cow’s digestive system that create methane in the first place and could lead to a reduction in emissions of up to 20 per cent.

Even the idea of capturing the breath of less gassy bulls for breeding the next generation has been toyed with and trialled and in yet another study, it's suggested that by raising dairy calves on beef farms, rather than at home on the traditional dairy operation, the country could cut a whopping chunk of emissions - up to two million tonnes of carbon dioxide each year. However, Federated Farmers president Andrew Hoggard says the solutions lie in high-tech initiatives and the cooperation of the general public. “We need every Kiwi to join a conversation about their need to consider, and eventually accept, the use of high-tech solutions like methane vaccines, feed inhibitors and other solutions like gene-edited grasses.” Grasses such as HME Ryegrass, which has been reported to grow up to 50 per cent faster than conventional ryegrass and produce 23 per cent less methane from cattle under laboratory conditions.

While any or all of the above sound positive or worthwhile in theory, when the future of dairy farming is reliant on genetic modification and new technology emulating the efficiency of a mechanical process, in organic beings, is it not being set up to fail? Not only is the dairy industry relying on time we do not have to develop such technology and techniques, but it is also attempting to further its exploitation of all labourers, from cows to farm hands by expecting an organic system to conform to an artificial demand.

Water pollution

In New Zealand’s wilder mountainous regions, glacial meltwater runs clear and pure. But in the lowlands, where half of the country’s rivers run through farmland, it’s a different story.

Last year, a national environmental report described how many of New Zealand’s “rivers, lakes, and groundwaters have unnaturally high levels of nutrients, chemicals, disease-causing pathogens, and sediment.” The increasing number of dairy cows, which are being farmed more intensively, is the main culprit. More hooves mean more compaction of the soil and stirring up river sediment. More cows also mean increased use of fertiliser, irrigation and supplementary food, and more manure and urine, all resulting in more nitrogen run-off into the waterways.

Aquatic animals are struggling to survive under these conditions; more of New Zealand’s freshwater species are threatened than those of almost any other country. Many have even gone locally extinct.

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The dairy industry has fought efforts to improve the situation, objecting to government proposals to tighten water regulations. DairyNZ claimed in 2019 that the new policies could wipe $6 billion off the industry by 2050 and that “less stringent” measures could achieve the same improvements in water quality without harming the industry’s bottom line. On some measures, like the level of nitrate toxicity allowed in waterways, the government ended up compromising to keep farmers happy. 

Exports and politics

Meat and dairy are big business in New Zealand, with their economic value deriving mainly from exports; 92 per cent of lamb, 82 per cent of beef, and 95 per cent of dairy produced is sold abroad, bringing in billions of dollars a year. This means that not only are these industries politically influential, but politics is also shaped by a wish to protect the export market.

China is New Zealand’s biggest export market and buys up the largest share of its animal products. As of June this year, China received 44 per cent of New Zealand's dairy and 41 per cent of its meat. This dependence on China has made Jacinda Ardern reluctant to criticise China on its atrocities against the Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang province. Ardern also stood with China and against New Zealand’s nearest neighbour, Australia, and other allies that condemned the incomplete report from the World Health Organization on the origins of Covid-19.

This deference to China is certainly in New Zealand’s economic interest, seeing as China punished Australia with tariffs and trade restrictions after its criticism of the WHO Covid-19 inquiry. But having China as its main trading partner is also driving New Zealand to concentrate its economy on fewer sectors to satisfy Chinese demand for certain goods. Meanwhile, China has diversified its agricultural trade to insulate its consumers from disruptions in supplies from overseas. In short, New Zealand and its livestock industry need China a lot more than China needs them.

Could New Zealand move away from animal agriculture?

In 2019, New Zealand adopted a Happiness Index as its new economic framework, replacing Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as the main measurement of the country’s economic state. The following year, Jacinda Ardern also declared a Global Climate Emergency. In that context, the idea of New Zealand transitioning to different, less impactful forms of agriculture seems not just doable but necessary.

As freshwater ecologist Dr Mike Joy wrote in his 2020 'Message to Jacinda', “I am convinced in the future we will look back and see dairy production in the way we do it now is the worst possible land use for this country. We do not need to spend money to fix the environment. What we need to do is get rid of the failed system that allowed it to be harmed in the first place.”

The argument that the dairy industry is the ‘backbone’ of the economy also does not stand up to scrutiny, Joy argues. “When the externalities – that is, the harm done to aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems, drinking water and our atmosphere – are included in analyses, dairy farming adds up to a negative outcome for all New Zealanders.” 

There are opportunities for New Zealand’s farmers to diversify away from meat and dairy production, including into plant-based protein to meet growing consumer demand for such food while lowering environmental impact. 

But this won’t happen without government support and investment. By choosing to wait and pin its hopes on emissions-reduction technology right now, the government and the agricultural sector are choosing to be the victim of the climate crisis, rather than the heroes that help take the world out of it.  

Claire Hamlett is a freelance journalist, writer and regular contributor at Surge. Based in Oxford, UK, Claire tells stories that challenge systemic exploitation of and disregard for animals and the environment and that point to a better way of doing things.

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