Governments must assist farmers transition away from animal agriculture to more plant-based future.
Transitioning farming from animals to plants
Category: Agriculture
Repurposing some agricultural land for horticulture has revenue consequences
New Zealand is incredibly dependent on its primary industry sector for revenue so I thought it worth looking at the current situation. If we are proposing that we reduce our dairy in order to reduce our methane and nitrous oxide emissions, it has export revenue consequences. If we say some appropriate land should be repurposed for growing more plant foods, then it might pay us to look at the revenue we currently receive from our primary sector. Continue reading “Repurposing some agricultural land for horticulture has revenue consequences”
Meat and aviation industries use cute ways to measure emissions
When it comes to telling the public about their emissions, the aviation industry keeps telling us how much their efficiency has improved. That is they can fly further on a certain amount of fuel.
But what they don’t tell us is that their capacity keeps increasing so much that overall their emissions increase. The planes are bigger, they have more routes and there are more planes flying. Continue reading “Meat and aviation industries use cute ways to measure emissions”
New Zealand’s agricultural emissions are high
Nearly half of New Zealand’s emissions are from livestock. A shocking 46.1% for the year 2012 as calculated by the Ministry for the Environment. (MfE). A large proportion of this comes from beef and to a less extent sheep. The MfE paper tells us tells us that in 2012 we had 6.4 m dairy cattle, 3.8m beef cattle, 3.1 m sheep and 1 m deer. So a total of 14.3m ruminant livestock. Continue reading “New Zealand’s agricultural emissions are high”
New Zealanders eat 94.6kg of meat per capita according to Beef and Lamb NZ
On this topic there is nothing better than referring to Beef and Lamb New Zealand website itself from which I quote:- Continue reading “New Zealanders eat 94.6kg of meat per capita according to Beef and Lamb NZ”
New Zealand editorial writer is dreaming if he thinks sustainable beef production is possible
In June 2019 the Herald was doing some editorialising on the end of meat. Impossible Burgers had recently made an entry and it was looking like there were going to be more plant based imitation meat appearing on the market soon. They said, “While in New Zealand beef and lamb consumption has fallen, 38 per cent and 45 per cent respectively in the past 10 years, the trend doesn’t spell doom for our $10 billion red meat industry.” Continue reading “New Zealand editorial writer is dreaming if he thinks sustainable beef production is possible”