Editorial: Sense at last
OPINION: For the first time in many years, a commonsense approach is emerging to balance environmental issues with the need for the nation's primary producers to be able to operate effectively.
As the sensible man from Waikato Regional Council pointed out, this is no big deal, it’s simply the dairy industry disposing of waste in a responsible way. Fonterra does this every October when milk production peaks, but this year’s exceptional milk supply requires huge dumping of by-products. Yet city people are told it’s pollution and a threat to civilisation as we know it.
In the city, pouring discarded engine oil or paint down a stormwater drain is sort-of acceptable, regardless of these pollutants showing up on a pristine beach. City folk never pollute – yeah right! Visit any city landfill and you will see all sorts of nasties about to leach into the soil and end up in a nearby stream or on a beach.
This latest incident highlights the gap between town and country and shows that city folk need to be educated in what is normal in the country.
The phrase ‘dirty dairying’ rolls off the tongue easily, but its perpetrators include those who have spread didymo from stream to stream and lake to lake. It could be called ‘dirty fishing’ but dare we criticise these ‘environmentalists’?
The dairy industry is doing the right thing and disposing of waste in a responsible way, yet city journalists don’t get it, perceiving a legitimate practice as an environmental disaster. The reality is all industries produce waste and the primary sector is no exception.
It’s time city folk caught up by acknowledging the farming sector has by and large got its act together.
