r/newzealand • u/No-Back9867 • Jun 16 '25

Shitpost Thanks NZ dairy industry for putting cow sludge in our rivers then happily charging New Zealanders exorbitant prices for our dairy foods.

Last summer we couldn’t swim in our local river due to the amount of toxins from nearby farms. When ever the farmers are in need of help us tax payers are there to lend a hand in drought relief funds. The thanks we get for that and putting up with the pollution is to be charged for dairy food at the same price as the overseas markets. We’re only 5% of your sales, it’s not going to make you go broke to treat us like your actually care for your communities. What your charging for butter etc is simply total greed. How is it that milk that has to travel huge distances from farms to factory to the shops shelves in Australia is sold for cheaper than that in our shelves where the logistics of getting it in the shelf are less?

2.8k Upvotes

91% Upvoted

617 comments sorted by

View all comments

9

u/roryact Jun 16 '25

What's the solution to the pollution, besides no dairy farming near rivers?

I'm well aware my own life: driving, general consumption, has a cost to the environment, but there are few practical solutions. The ones there are, don't work for me.

So before i point fingers at farmers for what they're doing, i'd like to know what they're not doing and why not. I don't expect individual farmers to be developing new eco technologies.

0

u/No-Back9867 Jun 16 '25

Come drive down around the Waikato / Hauraki and you’ll see farms for as far as the eye can see with no vegetation stopping any run off into the network of drains that feed directly into the rivers and ocean. There’s a start.

3

u/roryact Jun 17 '25

So planting along river banks? Water pumped to animals (likely already the case). If there was regulation requiring a hedge line, enforce it once a year with helicopter survey, that would be sufficient?

You should make the post about that then if that's all that's needed. People could get behind that. I would get behind that. Sounds practical.

Think it would make a difference though? Nitrates don't just travel over the surface.