When one looks at the reason for this, it must send a message that things are becoming absurd in NZ today, when unscientific personal beliefs take precedence over the country’s laws and standards.
So, back to the eggs. In a move by our ever thoughtful (not) supermarkets, which almost overnight decided that over 35% of the country’s perfectly legal egg producers no longer met their personal animal welfare standards. This despite the fact they fully complied with MPI’s standards who are, in fact, our regulators in these matters.
How has this been allowed to happen? When a person or persons can, at their whim, decide that they can effectively starve us – due their own personal beliefs— be allowed to happen?
How long will it be before they decide the same fate for meat etc?
It was interesting to see only one farming group, Groundswell, had the fortitude to call for a boycott of a supermarket chain. This call was to highlight the situation where supermarkets are demanding more than any government agency requires. This will surely lead to further shortages and price rises. It was also a missed opportunity for the rest of the farming leadership to unite the industry once again.
We have had investigations into supermarkets – with nothing done.
Surely we can no longer continue to allow these operations to behave in such a callous manner to society. Surely the supermarkets’ principal job is to ensure a stable supply of reasonably priced food, which is why they got a free reign over the Covid lockdown.
But the double standards supermarket chains hold, haven’t prevented them from importing pork from countries that have virtually no animal welfare standards. To me, and I am sure most thinking people, this is absurd.
We now take this further and also find that the Green Party is the principal party of misinformation when it comes to these matters.
James Shaw is now claiming that our farm animals are responsible for 50% of NZ GHG emissions.
However, when we break this down, we find that once again it’s misinformation. At recent conferences in the UK, France, Germany and the US on agricultural emissions, there was no agreement on the CO₂ equivalent for methane. But it was agreed that it was somewhere between 12 and 20 CO₂ equivalents. Yet Shaw claims an equivalent figure of 86 CO₂ to 1 methane.
Once again, just complete misinformation, but reported in the media as facts. The fact that our stock numbers are also well below previous levels also seems to have escaped the media.
So, one asks just how can our journalists continue to keep publishing this misinformation?
It seems that Facebook and other social media have fact checkers, but mainstream media doesn’t, as was shown recently with Radio NZ. It’s time, I think, that our media took a good look at themselves and got back to actual facts and checking them and not publishing opinions based on poor or misinformation.
In a few weeks’ time, you all have a chance to stop this madness – vote carefully.
Jeremy Talbot is a South Canterbury arable farmer.
